Timeline 4536
by Tovath
Summary: Dead Being Rewritten as Curses Aren't the Only Change.
1. Chapter 1

Timeline 4536

Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own this stuff

There are many different parallel worlds where the same people live sometimes greatly different lives because they or the people around them have made different choices. For example in one world a young man named Ranma Saotome ends up becoming the ruler of a large part of China and in anther world he ends up dying from food poisoning. To those who deal with such thing on a regular basis, namely Sailor Pluto and the wizards of the Unseen University, call these different worlds "timelines."

This story takes place in the timeline called 4536 (hey, there are a lot of them). The main choice that makes this timeline different is that while out drinking after 'training' his son in the Neko Ken, Genma Saotome got an offer to train a girl named Makoto Kino, who's parents had died in a plane crash, in exchange for a large amount of money. The story takes place ten years after that event.

xxxxxxxx

Sailor V was chasing after a thief when two people about her age got in the way. "Let me by," she said

The brown haired girl's response was, "We can't, I'm afraid. That idiot might not be much, but…"

Before she could continue the white haired Moon Cat, Artemis, jumped down from the roof onto a near-by trash can. "Minako…"

"CCCCat," Ranma pressed up against the back wall of the alleyway looking absolutely terrified.

"Aw, hell," Makoto tried to chase Artemis away. Sailor V thought that she was trying to hurt Artemis and stopped her and then Artemis saw this and made the tactical error of jumping on Ranma's head to distract him so Minako doesn't have to fight two people at once. This causes Ranma to fall into the Nekoken and take off meowing with Artemis tangled up in his hair screaming bloody murder.

Four hours later …

Makoto and Minako climb to the top of Big Ben and find Ranma, curled up in a corner, and a rather dizzy Artemis.

"We finally caught up with them," said a rather out of breath Minako.

"Yes, finally, having those thugs chase us because they thought we were trying to spy on their meeting was a bit much. I take it that your cat is not normal," said Makoto, just as out of breath

Artemis had recovered enough at this point to say "Yes and I take it you and your friend aren't normal either. Who are you two and can you please tell me why I was dragged over half of London?" Artemis was feeling rather cranky, for some reason when he said this.

"I'm Makoto Kino and he's Ranma Soatome. Sorry about this; Ranma is rather scared of cats. Also sorry we had to interrupt your thief chasing, but if that idiot gets thrown in jail here I don't know what we will do," Said Makoto.

"Why he's a thief, he deserves to go to jail." Replied Minako

" 'Cause he's my guardian and Ranma's pop," said Makoto.

"You would be better off without him," proclaimed Minako

"What do you know anyway? You have a family to go home to, don't ya? All I have is Ranma and that idiot Genma," replied Makoto

Artemis took a good look at Makoto, could it be, "So what are you planning to do? You can't go on like this forever."

"Couple more years and me and Ranma won't be minors and we will have gotten mastership in Anything Goes, then we'll get jobs and maybe be able to pay back some of the people Genma stole from," said Makoto.

"I am glad to hear that because, you see, you are the reincarnation of the Princess of Jupiter."

Makoto looked at Artemis blinked and turned to Minako, "Are all talking cats this crazy?"

"What, yes, I mean no, I mean Artemis you can't be serious." Said Minako

"I am serious and I am not crazy," Artemis did one of those flip things and comes up with Jupiter's henshin wand. "If you don't believe me then take this wand and say Jupiter power, make up."

"You have got to be kidding me," said Makoto nevertheless picking up the stick.

"Just say it alright!"

"Alright, alright, Jupiter Power Make Up." As everyone here (hopeful) knows Makoto is Jupiter so the transformation worked fine.

Minako, having gotten over her surprise at who one of the other Senshi was, said, "This is great, now I have someone to work with."

After a moment Makoto, or should I say Sailor Jupiter, said in a tone that conveyed that she wasn't really sure about what she was saying, "Look this is nice and all, but Ranma can't stand cats and I am not going off without my brother, whatever we will be doing." She then detransformed and tried to hand the henshin wand back to Artemis.

Artemis refused to take it, "No, it is yours."

"So why's Ranma so afraid of cats anyway," asked Minako seeing the chance of having some one to fight beside go away as she also detransformed, after all it wouldn't be polite to stay transformed when her fellow Senshi wasn't.

"First thing he asked me when we met was if there were any cats around. It's supposed to be because of training in something called the Nekoken," said Makoto. "It's caused a lot of trouble."

"Oh," said Minako then turning to Artemis, "Don't you have some Moon Cat magic you can use to fix things?"

Artemis sweatdropped, "I have something that might work." Hen turned to Makoto, "Do I have your permission to do it, Makoto?"

"Why ask me?"

"Because I can't ask Ranma."

"Ok, then yeah, you can use it, but don't screw anything up." Makoto agreed to this only because she had a feeling or a dim memory from her past life, that Artemis could be trusted.

"Right then," Artemis stood before Ranma, the crescent moon on his head glowed and he dived into Ranma's subconscious and found himself in an area filled with mist, facing another cat. The other cat immediately attacked Artemis and he was forced to defend himself. As he jumped back to catch his breath and figure out what the hell was going on, the other cat shot claws out of his paws. There was no way to avoid all of them so Artemis braced for the attack pulling his magic around him in hopes that he would not get killed.

And the claws disintegrated against the shield the now human Artemis was holding. "I had forgotten that I could do this," thought Artemis as he drew his sword and sliced the cat in half.

Back in the real world, Minako and Makoto watched as Artemis' form blurs into a young human with white hair then back into a cat.

"Ok now what?" thought Artemis, "If this is Ranma's subconscious then I guess I should calm the mist down." As he did this some of the mist swirled around him and then the mist became as calm as a Buddhist monk meditating and Artemis 'woke up' back in the real world. "I think I was able to fix Ranma's fear of cats."

"You think?" said Makoto, "You mean you don't know."

"He did, Makoto, I can think of cats without getting scared now," said Ranma as he woke up.

"I guess I have to help with this Senshi thing now," said Makoto, "So what is it anyway?"

"3000 years ago there was a thriving civilization that was ruled by…," started Artemis

"Come on, they don't want to hear about that, Artemis. Basically we have to stop the Dark Agency from draining people's energy," said Minako.

"It is a martial artist's duty to protect the weak, so we would have helped, had to help, ya anyway," said Ranma and Makoto nodded.

"Ranma, I didn't mean you. You don't have magic and I doubt you could even hurt the members of the Dark Agency," said Artemis.

"Wanna bet?" Ranma concentrated and a small ball of chi formed between his hands, then anything in the room that wasn't nailed down lifted up off the floor and the ball of energy in Ranma's hands doubled in size and seemed to explode but nothing was hurt.

"How did you do that, Ranma?" yelled Artemis, all of his hair standing straight up.

"Don't know, something add itself to my chi," said Ranma, rather stunned, "Give me a little while to figure it out and then I'll be able to beat anything."

"Ranma, that something you just used was magic. It's very dangerous to use without proper training," Artemis stopped for a moment, "Have you ever had any indication that you had any gift for magic before?"

"Naw, we met this old man once that said Makoto had some, but he didn't say anything about me," said Ranma.

"Wish we hadn't had to leave in such a hurry. I would've liked to talk to him more," said Makoto, remembering the incident.

"Uh, Ranma I will have to check into a few things," Artemis said as something occurred to him, "I will talk to you more about this later. Just be careful."

Since it didn't look like Artemis was going to say any more about magic right now, Makoto asked, "So if you have this mission to defeat the Dark Agency then why are you chasing down thieves?"

"Um, I need the practice" Minako looked embarrassed as she said this.

"If ya need training then we can help."

Big Ben started ringing the hour and Minako realized that it was getting rather late. "Ah, my parents are going to kill me," and transformed and ran off.

Artemis sweatdropped and said, "Since tomorrow is Saturday, how about we meet up at the park on 10th street at 11am?"

"Fine, is she going to be in good enough shape to go out by then?" asked Ranma

"You mean Minako, why wouldn't she be?" asked Artemis.

"She was yelling about being killed and people always yell they are gonna kill us or Pop before trying to beat us up. If she's too hurt, we'll understand," replied Ranma

Artemis had to take a moment to recover from this statement, they think that is normal, he thought. "Don't worry. At worst her mom will yell at her. Now I must be going. I will see you tomorrow."

xxxxxxxx

The next day dawned clear and bright. At 11 Minako and Artemis walked to the park. Minako's arms were full of the books Artemis had found for Ranma. Shortly after they got there Ranma and Makoto came up, "So, here we are, so what's the lay down on the Dark Agency anyway?"

"There you two are. Ranma, I have some books on magic for you," said Artemis patting the books with one of his front paws.

"Training manuals?"

Watching a cat roll his eyes is interesting, "Yes Ranma training manuals. In regards to your question, Makoto, you already know what's in the books even if you can't remember it. Now, the Dark Agency is a group of 'beings' who are trying to steal human energy. I suspect they are minions of Beryl. If that is true then things could get bad."

"Before we worry about that you need a disguise and a code name Ranma," said Minako, "We can't let everyone know who you are."

Ranma was understandably leery about having this overenthusiastic girl play dress-up with him. "Why do you say that?"

"Come on, bro, if I have to wear something silly then so do you," said Makoto, trying not to laugh.

"The Senshi uniforms are not silly," exclaimed Minako

"Yes they are," replayed Ranma and Makoto at the same time. Everyone was silent for a moment then Artemis said, "Can we get back to the point here?"

"Right. So, I think we should have Ranma dress up in a tuxedo, cape and mask."

"Come on, that wouldn't work. The cape would be too easy for an enemy to grab onto," started Ranma.

"And the tux would be too confining."

"And do you know how long it would take to get into that getup?"

"Not to mention the cost," finished Makoto

"Fine if you are going to shoot my ideas out of the air," said Minako

"Come on, the mask is a good idea. It's just that the rest is hard for a martial artist to move in," said Makoto, "Maybe we should choose a code name for Ranma first?"

That wasn't actually what I meant thought Artemis, Ranma's next words surprised him though. "If I have to have a silly name then it's going to be Jupiter Knight." said Ranma.

"Ranma how did you know there was an Order of Knights for each Planet," asked Artemis.

"Didn't wait, you mean there was, I just made that up 'cause knights are warriors and Makoto is my sister," said Ranma

"Why do you call Makoto your sister anyway? You two aren't related as far as I can tell," asked Artemis

"Blood isn't everything. Makoto doesn't have any family and all I got is that idiot you saw earlier, and we have always been together, so why shouldn't we decide we're siblings?" Replied Ranma

"Ok, anyway the knights had the tasks of safeguarding the royal family, maintaining the stability of the realm and protecting the weak," said Artemis

"The protecting is in the martial artists code but Makoto don't need anyone to protect her and would hit me if I tried," said Ranma disregarding what Artemis said about maintaining the stability of the realm, because he wasn't quite sure what that meant, but he did correctly think it was not something he had to worry about.

"Damn right, I'm not a weakling who needs to be protected by a guy." said Makoto. In case you are wondering, Genma stopped saying that girls are weak several years ago because he got beat up by his two students whenever he said it.

"Ok, do you mind if Ranma becomes a knight of Jupiter, Makoto?" asked Artemis, feeling a headache coming on.

"Don't have any trouble with it, no one I'd rather have guard my back."

Suddenly there is a loud rumble. Is it from a thunderstorm? No it's from Ranma's stomach.

"Getting hungry, Ranma? I know a good place to eat," said Minako.

"Don't got any money, Pops spent the little we had on sake before we could get ahold of it. Why do you think he was stealing stuff last night?" replied Ranma.

"Don't worry I just got my allowance so I can pay for the meal." Minako was about to find out about wonders of the Saotome stomach.

After they were done eating Ranma mentioned that he hadn't felt so full since he had gone to Iteven middle school.

"Oh did they serve extra large lunches there?" asked Minako thinking half of my allowance gone.

"Naw, the lunch room was a mad house, everyone would fight over the food there. Me and Makoto had a couple of good friends there, names of Haruka and Ryouga. Now Haruka unlike us and Ryouga had lots of money, she sometimes would buy us food," said Ranma.

"Isn't Iteven an all-boys school?" asked Minako. She remembered the name because a boy she had thought was cute went there.

Makoto replied, "Ya, when you think about it, it's kinda funny, me and Haruka kept running into each other in odd places 'cause we were both trying to hide that we were girls."

"I'm sure, but why were you at an all-boys school in the first place?" Minako then surprised them and asked, "Did you know Yukihen?"

"Genma said it was training, who knows what he meant by that. Haruka said she was going because it would annoy her parents," said Makoto, "And why are you asking about Ranma's admirer?"

"Um, just because I happened to meet him once," Minako said. She didn't want to admit that she had a crush on a gay guy.

There was an awkward silence for a minute. Then Artemis decided to bring up a new subject. "I believe I have found out why Ranma suddenly developed a magic gift. Um, when I fixed Ranma's fear of cats I might have formed a bond between us and Ranma got some of my magic," said Artemis

"What does that mean, Artemis?" Ranma said.

"Um, basically it means that each person gets some of the other's power and they can commutate telepathically," explained Artemis

Ranma thought about this and asked, "Does that mean you got some of my chi?"

Artemis blinked when Ranma asked this, "What is Chi?"

Ranma replies, "Chi is life force. Ya use it to boost healing, reflexes, speed and strength. If ya are really good, like me and Makoto then you can show a visible battle aura and throw around balls of energy."

"Wow, you mean you can do stuff like they do in kung fu movies?" asked Minako.

Something in Minako's voice made Ranma ashamed of his bragging, "Actually haven't gotten the hand of chi attacks or projecting much of a battle aura yet. Wait a minute. If Artemis can use my chi then he'll need to be trained in Anything Goes. I'm going to ask Pops about permission to train. You gonna teach the basics to those two, Makoto." when Makoto nodded Ranma jumped up on the roof of a nearby building and roof hopped away.

"What was that about?" asked Minako

"You need mastership to teach martial arts. Only school me and Ranma know that teachs chi manipulation is Anything Goes," replied Makoto. "Now try to attack me."

"What, Why?" asked Minako

"I need to see what you need to work on," replied Makoto. So Minako threw a punch which Makoto easily blocked.

"Not bad. You remembered to keep your thumb on the outside of your fist and out of the way when you punch, but you need to get your whole body behind your punch. When you throw a punch you need to throw it from the shoulder and twist a bit at the hips to get some momentum." Makoto demonstrated then said, "Also make sure not to lock your elbow when you punch, that can hurt." As you might guess Minako was a bit overwhelmed with the amount of information on how to throw a simple punch. "So practice that against the tree over there, just worry about technique right now, power and speed will come later."

Then Makoto turned to Artemis "You need to change to human form now. I can't train a cat."

"What, why do I …and how do you know …?" started Artemis,

"You changed when healing Ranma. As for why you have to learn Martial Arts, you told Ranma why he needed to learn magic. Chi is just as dangerous, you know," replied Makoto.

"But you said you wouldn't be teaching any chi manipulation right now."

"No matter what school you practice you still have to learn the basics."

"I don't have any clothes." Now this was the real reason Artemis didn't want to change form.

This was more interesting than punching a tree, so Minako was listening in on this conversation and decided to pipe up now, "Hey I know a good place to get some clothes for Artemis." As I am sure you don't want to hear about the ensuing shopping trip, let us instead go see how Ranma is doing.

xxxxxx

As Ranma was returning from his 'discussion' with Genma, he could only shake his head at how his father only agreed to letting him teach under the threat of starting his own school. He suspected there was more to it then that. He was wondering why his Pop had mentioned teaching at his old friend, Soun's Dojo when he was brought out of his musings by Minako called out, "Hey Ranma, we got a mask and vest for you."

"Oh," Ranma looked rather unenthusiastic about that, "Weren't you supposed to be training?"

"We needed to get some clothes for Artemis. I found them then," explained Minako.

"Right, got permission to teach ya Anything Goes, so let's get started with a basic kata."

Since the point of the kata Ranma demonstrated was control and position, not speed, his 'students' were able to actually see what to do. But seeing is not the same thing, as doing Artemis soon found out. "Damn it, it is hard to stay balanced on two feet."

"Well, then your homework for tonight is to spend some time walking around in your human form."

"Right, Ranma, and yours is to read those books I gave you."

All in all it was an enjoyable afternoon for everyone, well some people at least.

xxxxxxx

Artemis was walking along the streets of London in his human form. He had decided spend some time in human form. He looked up and saw that he was in front of a music store called Camelot Music. "There's something odd emanating from this store." Artemis stood there for a moment, "Might as well, go in."

Camelot Music was a normal enough looking music store. It had the cashiers up front, racks of CDs organized by type of music, and a little nook with some headsets so that customers could hear a track or two of a CD to make sure they wanted to buy it or rather to convince them should buy it. When Artemis stepped into the store his eyes were drawn to that nook with the headsets, actually they were drawn to the people around the headphone that you could listen to the new band, The Dark Twins, on. The minute a person put on the headphones they started to look listless and then they grabbed one of the CDs and bought it.

Now you can guess that Artemis found this rather odd, to say the least, and he decided to try putting on the headphones to see what was going on. The minute he put on the headphones he felt this big blast of negative energy and he staggered back.

"_Ya ok?" _

"_Yes, I'm fine," _Artemis opened his eyes; the store clerk was standing in front of him looking worried "Are you alright, sir?"

"I'm fine; I think there is something wrong with that machine. It gave me a bit of a shock," said Artemis

"I'll call someone to look at it."

"Good." As Artemis left the store he thought wait a minute, I know I just heard Ranma. "_Ranma"._

"_Yah"_

_"Where are you right now?"_

_"I'm in the room Pops rented. I'm doing the meditation practice the book you gave me called finding your center."_

"_Well I'm standing outside of Camelot Music right now"_

_"Aw hell is this some kind of teleawhhatis thing isn't it?"_

_"Telepathic and yes it seems to be. I think I may have discovered what the Dark Agency's next move is. Get Makoto and get over to Minako's, we've some planning to do."_

xxxxxxx

When they we're all gathered together Artemis told about the Dark Twins CD's having draining and control magic in them. The response to Artemis's statement were something like this

"Yep with a name like that they have to be working for the Dark Agency."

"Come on, they wouldn't be that stupid? Really, couldn't they think of anything less obvious to call themselves?"

"We should look into it, even if it isn't true. We'll get to see one of the hottest new bands around." As you can guess this last statement was said by Minako.

"How are we surpposed to find out if they are doing stuff anyway?" asked Makoto.

"They have a concert next weekend." Does it surprise anyone that Minako would know this?

"That means we'll have to do lots of training this week," said Ranma.

That weekend, Minako looked at the sign displaying ticket prices, "Um, problem, guys. I don't have enough money for tickets."

"We'll just have to find anther way in." Makoto looked up at the roof then at Minako, "better see if the back door is open first."

"If it isn't now, it will be soon." Genma felt that lock picking had been essential to creating the Umi-sen-ken so he taught Ranma how to do it.

"Are you crazy, what if we get caught?" said Minako her voice raising several levels.

"We won't get caught unless you give us away with your yelling, besides do you have a better idea," said Makoto as she pulled her around the corner away from the crowd.

"Um, I could disguise myself as a army commando and force my way in," said Minako realizing how ridiculous that was as she said it.

Rrright, I'll go look for the back door," said Ranma and left. A few minutes later he came back and said, "The back door is open and there is no one around, so lets go." Sneaking into the concert hall turned out to be much easier than Minako expected.

Once they got inside Minako was looking at all the Dark Twins merchandise for sale around the concert hall when she ran into a redheaded young man around her age.

"Oh, excuse me," he said then misinterpreting Minako's love-struck look, "Are you alright?"

Minako thinks he's cute and nice said, "I'm fine. My name is Minako Aino. What's yours?"

"Tomas Drake, I'm sorry for running into you."

"No it was my…" Minako started when a voice boomed behind them, "Pray save the romancing of girls until after our work is done, good Tomas."

"Yes'm Puck." Then Tomas turned back to Minako, "Maybe I will see later."

As Tomas left Makoto walked over. "Who was that guy? His chi is focused oddly."

"I don't know, but he's cute isn't he?" replied Minako

"Not half as cute as my old sempai," said Makoto

AN: I just want o say to things here. One, some people in this story are going to act a bit differently then in cannon. This is because they have had some different influences growing up. Two Ranma doesn't have his curse yet, but he will be getting it. Thanks go to Wargiver and others at Fukufics


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own this stuff

There were hundreds of people at the Dark Twins concert. Some of them looked happy and excited while others looked low on energy. Then the Dark Twins started to sing. Almost immediately everyone (excepting our heroes of course) was captivated by the song.

Artemis sensed the draining and control spells in the music and yelled out"Go Transform now."

A shadowy figure off to the side noticed this, "A talking cat I must tell my master about this." The figure slipped away just as Sailor V was giving her introduction speech.

Makoto and Ranma were wishing that they could pretend not to know Minako because her speech was so…sappy, but they introduced themselves as Sailor Jupiter and Jupiter Knight.

"We won't let"

"You defeat us" The Dark Twins played a guitar riff "Puppet Power" All of the people in the hall turned towards the Senshi and Knight with blank faces.

"This will not do," a new music rang out and destroyed the spells that the Dark Twins had woven with their music including the one that hid their true forms. "Misusing Bardic magic is prohibited under the Covent."

"Why should I care about this Covent," growled the ten foot tall clawed beast that had been disguised as one of the Dark Twins.

"Yes, we don't care about your stupid Covent," said the other yoma

"Then you may have a few moments to make peace with your gods for you will be seeing them in person soon." This was said by Puck from behind the yoma. Puck had a mage bolt in his hands

The yoma didn't listen to Pucks advice and attacked. The left yoma dodged a crescent beam and the mage bolt. The right yoma blocked Tomas's sword and Ranma's punch, but she didn't have a third arm to block Tomas's other arm when it changed into a dragon's claw and tore though her.

"How ya do that?" yelped Ranma surprised.

"I'm half dragon," said Tomas as he turned to the remaining yoma.

A young man wearing a travel stained yellow shirt and black pants who was carrying a large backpack grabbed one of the people that was running away from the battle. "Where is Iteven middle school?" he said in Japanese.

"Let me go you, I don't understand a word you are saying."

"Sorry," The young man said in English this time, "Where am I?"

"Are you crazy? A couple of monsters just attacked, get out while you still can!"

The young man, whose name was Ryouga Habiki in case you hadn't figured it out already, let go of the person he was holding and grabbed several bandanas off his forehead and threw them at the yoma. The bandanas sliced off one of the yoma's arms. The yoma turned to see who its new opponent was, this proved to be fatal for it as a Supreme Thunder cut it in half.

Everyone turned to see who helped them, Makoto's face went quite red and Ranma called out to his friend, "Hey buddy thanks for the save."

"Ranma you look really silly in that getup," said Ryouga trying not to laugh at the mask Ranma was wearing.

"It wasn't my dumb idea, Minako came up with it; said something about not letting the bad guys know who I am," Ranma replied quickly taking off the mask and vest and hiding them, "You haven't said anything about Makoto's costume and it's even sillier."

This comment along with what Ryouga had noticed during the fight caused him to realize that yes that was Makoto that was in a short skirt, make that a really short skirt. Thud! Ryouga fell over unconscious with a massive nosebleed.

The sounds of police sirens filled the air, "Cops, we better get, I'll grab Ryouga's pack and M…"

Puck interrupted, "I'll grab Ryouga it would be best to be out of here double quick."

Puck picked up Ryouga and they went flying out the back door as the police came in the front. Well not literally flew, the only one of them who could actually fly was Tomas and he didn't have his wings out, but they were running fast enough to be flying. They stopped at a construction site to rest and wait for Ryouga to wake up.

As Ryouga woke up the first person he saw was Tomas, "Hi Tomas, what's going on?"

"You know him, Ryouga?" asked Makoto.

Ryouga puts his hand behind his head looking embarrassed. "Yeah I got really lost once and ended up at his home, really nice place. They asked me to help get some herbs to heal this old guy. UM was I dreaming when I saw you in a short skirt?"

"Ur, no I found out that I'm the reincarnation of some ancient warrior with weird tastes in battle wear," said Makoto.

"Oh"

Puck laughed, "I wouldn't worry about it. Instead you should worry about what my lord Oberon would think about being called 'this old guy."

"He is isn't he? You did say he was several thousand years old so that makes him a really old guy," said Ryouga.

Minako had recently seen (read as her parents had dragged her to) 'A Midsummer Nights Dream'. "Hey isn't Oberon in that play that a guy named Shakespeare or something wrote and you are too, aren't you Robin Goodfellow?"

"Thou speakest aright; I am that merry wanderer of the night. I jest to Oberon, and make him smile. Actually King Oberon and Queen Titania commissioned Shakespeare for that piece. There is a reason he is sometimes called the Bard after all." Puck's estimation of the girl in front of him rose.

"So how did this Oberon guy get hurt anyway?" asked Ranma.

"My lord Oberon was fighting against some Norse raiders when he was struck in the side by the spear Orocia. He was able to drive away the Norse despite this, but afterwards he sickened. The Royal seer said that only a certain herb gathered by a half dragon, one of the fey and a human would be able to heal my lord's wound," explained Puck.

"And I got really lost and ended up there at just that time, so I went to find that herb with them. Puck gave me some advice on controlling my direction curse, not that it helps me find places any better," said Ryouga.

"There is only so much that can be done with such an affliction. Are not people more important then places?" replied Puck.

"I guess," Ryouga muttered, "can't seem to make it work right yet, so what have you two been up to?"

"Well Ranma got cured of…" They talked about all the weird stuff that had happened to them. Makoto talked about finding out she was a Sailor Senshi and Ryouga told about the trouble he got into with some kappa. That is until Ryouga noticed Genma's sulking form.

"Genma Saotome prepare to die"

"Ryouga don't" Ryouga was halfway down the street by the time Makoto finished with, "run off."

"Aw man we better catch him before he gets lost again," said Ranma as he and Makoto took off after Ryouga, "See you tomorrow."

Minako and Tomas blinked at this. Puck just smiled and said "It is good to have met the one Ryouga is to marry."

Marry, why do you say that?" asked Minako.

"It's as plain as the nose on my face. How can you not see it Senshi of Venus? Well Tomas and I must be off." Puck gestured and a door appeared in the air.

Before Tomas could go though the door "Wait" Minako kissed him. "We'll be meeting at the park on Tenth Street at 11am tomorrow. I hope to see you there."

"Why did you do that?" asked Artemis after Tomas left.

"You have to ask, because he is cute of course."

"Minako we don't know anything about him. He could be working for the enemy for all we know."

"Nonsense if he was working for them why would he help us, besides Makoto's boyfriend knows him."

xxxxxxxx

"Where the hell am I now?" one guess on who said this.

"Hey Ryouga how did you end up here?" called out a sandy blonde haired girl in a boy's school uniform.

"Hi Haruka," Ryouga looks around, "this doesn't look like Iteven. Did they remodel?"

"I wish, my mother found out I was going to an all boys school and made me change schools. I guess it doesn't matter much after all my friends aren't around anymore."

"Sorry, I'm not there," said Ryouga starting to get depressed at not being there for his friend, then he remembered what happened in London and he cheered back up, "I saw Makoto and Ranma recently; They're in London, England I think."

"That's great; I have been trying to find out why Genma just ran off with them like that. So how are they doing?"

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The next day, Tomas walked up to the park and saw Minako and Artemis waiting there. "Am I late?"

"I'm glad you came. If you had been late you would have seen me skidding on the ground. Ranma and Makoto have been teaching me some martial arts and they can be rather extreme at times, but they haven't shown up yet," replied Minako.

Artemis was flat on his back sunning him self but he now flipped upright, "Actually they should have been here by now. I'm going to see if I can contact Ranma."

_Ranma we are waiting here for you and Makoto. Where are you?_

_I'm a bit busy right now Artemis. Pops found out about some thing called cane fighting and, ow, decided we needed to be trained in it._

Artemis relayed Ranma's message "I think those two will be busy for a while. We should use this time to figure out what the Dark Agency is up to before they do something for a change."

Minako was about to say something about wanting to go shopping, but she looked over at Tomas and instead said, Right so how do we do that, any ideas?

Tomas replied to that before Artemis could, "I know someone who might help. He has helped me track down people before."

"Cool, let's go," Minako ran off with Tomas

"So where are we headed?" asked Minako.

"To see a friend of mine who is good at using a magic box to track down people," said Tomas hiding a smile, "Here we are." They go into an apartment complex and Tomas knocked once on the door at the end of the hall then twice more. The door opens to reveal an unkempt young man dressed in a tee shirt and sweatpants.

"I thought you would be showing up soon after I read the news, Tomas. I guess you are needing my services, come in." The inside of the apartment looked, well like a gamer's lair; dirty clothes and unwashed plates all around and the room was dominated by several computers.

"So how are you doing Arthur? May I introduce you to Minako Aino," said Tomas.

"Never brought a girl with you before. Let me guess you met her yesterday and she is one of the Sailor Scouts that you were fighting alongside at the Dark Twins concert."

For some reason being called a Sailor Scout really annoyed Minako, "That's Sailor Senshi, thank you very much, and … Whops I shouldn't have said that. How did you know who I was anyway?"

"It seemed like a good guess," Seeing Minako's expression Arthur waves his hands in front of his face, "Don't worry I won't spread the word . I haven't about Tomas being raised by fairies out of Shakespeare after all."

"Hump Tomas said something about you using magic boxes to find stuff, but I don't know…" said Minako.

"Tomas, man how many times do I have to tell you computers aren't magic" said Arthur shaking his head in mock-exasperation.

"Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," Tomas said trying to look serious (and failing).

"Oh so what you were talking about earlier was just computers. Darn I thought I was going to see something really interesting." Minako said

"Hey, computers are the most interesting things in the world, lady," said Arthur

Tomas did not want an augment to start "Calm down both of you we have more important things to do right now. Monsters that want to wreak havoc and have no respect for the Covent are attacking you know." This had the intended effect of making Minako and Arthur remember what they were doing.

"There you go again about the convent. I swear if it wasn't for that you would never come to this world. You would stay Underhill and I would be deprived of a good friend" joked Arthur.

"So what is this Covent you keep talking about, Tomas? You mentioned it yesterday too." Minako's plan to get a cute boyfriend: step 1 find a guy, done step 2 find out about what is important to him so you can talk about it, in progress.

Tomas started to explain, "The Covent, it is a set of laws that that lays down conduct for anyone with magic. It was laid down in its current form during the middle ages to prevent a repeat of the Inquisition from happening, but some of the laws are much older then that. As for my interest in it as a bard I am tasked with helping enforce the Covent…"

"Tomas you are going off on a rant again," Arthur turned to Minako, "So what information do we have on this Dark Agency that can help me track them down?"

Minako suddenly wished she had paid more attention to Artemis when he talked about who the enemy was, but wait Arthur said he just wanted to know stuff to track them down. "The Dark Agency has been trying to drain peoples energy thought a series of idols, so if we find out where those idols came from we should be able to find out where the Dark Agency is"

"Good idea, who are those idols?" said Arthur glad that she had some useful information.

"Well, let's see there was Pandora, Pettite Pandora and The Dark Princess," said Minako.

"That should be helpful, come back in a few days," Arthur shoed Tomas and Minako out of his apartment.

"Your friend is a bit rude isn't he?" said Minako annoyed.

"When he's got a problem between his teeth he doesn't like to be disturbed. Once he went for two days without food because of that. I had to make him promise not to do something that stupid again," said Tomas then after hesitating for a moment, "Would you like to go get a spot of tea?"

"I would love to."

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Stupid Pops he says that teaching is important and then he drags me off for this when I should be teaching Minako and Artemis. He coulda waited until Minako was in school. Ranma threw down his cane, "I'm done with this junk."

"Boy don't be so rude," for those of you who think that Genma doesn't know what the word rude means, Happosai did pound be obedient and respectful to your master into Genma's head pretty well.

"What do you know about being polite? You need to learn to keep the promises you make," said Ranma

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"How did you do that? That is so cool," said Ranma as he helped Tomas up.

"What I did, you're the one who kicked me in the chin," said Tomas.

"Yeah, but not as hard as I was planning to. You did something with your chi didn't you? So what did ya do?"

Now this statement really confused Tomas. "Ranma I have no idea what you are talking about. What is chi?"

"You just used it, how can ya not know what it is?"

Artemis interrupted, "Ranma you know chi is a Japanese word, isn't it? They might have a different word for it in English."

"Why would they do something like that?" asked Ranma

"Maybe because it's a different language, bro" said Makoto looking up from watching Minako go though a basic kata.

"Oh, right," Ranma put his hand behind his head embarrassed, "So what do you call what you used?"

"I believe what you are referring to is called awen, which means inspiration in the old tongue. At fist it was just used to enhance a bard's music and find things about the past out, and then Coirpre Mac Etanine created satire which he used against Bres…" said Tomas.

Ranma shook off sleep, Tomas' lectures sound just like a teacher's, "Hey, I just asked for the name of it not a whole history."

"Sorry I have been told I give too much information some times."

"Naw don't worry about it. We can trade info."

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They easily fell into a rhythm of training then going to Minako's house to get a bite to eat. After a few days of this Minako's mother said, "I can't think well of this Genma. He can't even keep you two properly clothed. Has he ever bothered to get you proper undergarments, Makoto?"

"Proper undergarments…Urr most of the time he forgets I'm a girl." stammered Makoto.

"Really, has anyone bothered to tell you about the facts of life?"

"You mean sex and periods and stuff, Haruka explained that to me," said Makoto thinking I'm sure my ears are quite red by now.

Mrs. Aino was glad she didn't have to explain things to Makoto. "Well then I'll take you and Ranma out shopping. I think my daughter would like some time alone with her new boyfriend?"

"Mom," yelped Minako embarrassed.

"I assure you I would… never take advantage of…" said Tomas.

"That is good to hear, but I bet you still want some time alone. We'll be back in a few hours, have fun."

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Now they use a different system for determining bra sizes over here then is used back home, so I will let the clerks help you there." Mrs Aino said then to the salesclerk "Please try not to embarrass her too much while helping her. She hasn't had much of a feminine influence in her life."

"Yes ma'am," said the clerk

"I'm going to help Ranma find some good shirts, be back in a few," said Mrs. Aino. As she left the store she saw a poster that said 'Lost Cat, Short white hair and has a crescent moon on his forehead Please call 555-1450 if you have seen him.

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Minako and Tomas talked for awhile about the things that a couple of teenagers who are interested in each other normally talk about. Ok, ok maybe that's not quite true since one of them was a half dragon and the other is a magical girl but it was pretty darn close to that. After a while Tomas said he had to go 'report in' and go by Arthur's and he would call later.

As he left Tomas decided to go to Arthur's first since if Arthur had found out anything the information might be able to destroy the Dark Agency.

Tomas knocked on Arthur's door. "Ah there you are Tomas," said Arthur as he opened the door, "I have something for you. Come in so I can give it to you."

Tomas went into the apartment and Arthur handed him a sheaf of paper. "I must say those guys have the same level of street smarts as you did when we first met. That," Arthur points to the papers he handed to Tomas, "is a complete blueprint of the building that the Dark Agency bought for their headquarters. The building was build two years ago and was brought by them six months ago. I double checked everything just to make sure. They haven't called any contractors or anything.

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"You are welcome to stay over to, Ranma," said Minako

"Naw, someone has to make sure Pops doesn't do something stupid." Then Ranma roof hoped back to the room that Genma had rented.

Where have you been boy?" yelled Genma when Ranma stepped in the door

"Aino san dragged us out to get some new cloths. She said what we were wearing was a disgrace."

"Shopping, I wouldn't have you turning into a weak little g…person," Genma decided he didn't want Ranma and Makoto to play another round of Beat up Pops, "A Martial artist should be willing to dedicate his life to the art."

I do Pops, but that doesn't mean I don't notice things There's stuff in this world that doesn't have anything to do with martial arts and isn't it a martial artist's duty to protect it?" said Ranma.

"Where did you hear that boy?" yelled Genma

"I do have a brain, you know. You have said many times that it's a martial artists duty to protect the weak, but how do I tell who is strong. Some people have different focuses but they have something important that they are doing."

"And what might that be?" asked Genma trying to sound like he knew what in the hell he was talking about

"Don't know maybe…There's gonna be more to life then this," yelled Ranma as he stomped out of the room.

Now contrary to popular thought Genma does not only care for his own wants although he seems to most of the time. He does care greatly for his son; no for both of his kids even if Makoto was not born to his wife she was still his kid. Also despite allegations otherwise he does have a brain, he just doesn't use it most of the time. He used it now and realized that he had messed up things pretty badly, but that there might be a way to fix things if he talked to the Aino's.

When Ranma got back to the Aino's he said he changed his mind. No one believed this they knew he had just had another fight with Genma.

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"Minako it's for you," Minako's mother called out holding out the phone.

Minako grabs the phone, "Yes, Oh hi Tomas, you did that's great. We are having a sleepover, Mom can Tomas come over?"

"Alright, dear"

"Thanks, she said it was fine, so come right over. See you soon."

When Mr. Aino got home he saw the four teenagers gathered around the kitchen table talking and pointing at something on the table. "What's going on here, dear?" he asked his wife.

"Minako's having a sleepover, her boyfriend brought over some D+D game."

From over at the table Tomas said, "So tomorrow we will meet up with our reinforcements to plan our attack."

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"Dar, you're in charge of our backup I see," said Tomas

"Yes Bard Tomas, I have that honor. What is our plan of attack?" Dar was smiling as he said this. He knew whatever Tomas' other talents were elsewhere he did not have a tactical mind.

It was Ranma not Tomas who answered though. He unrolled a sheaf of paper, "Here's some plans for the building the Dark Agency is in. If we have one group attack down here and then five minutes after that the second group will come in though the roof and take out the leader."

"A good plan cut off the head of the snake and it dies, but how will the second group get up to the top of the building without being noticed?"

"That's easy just have to do a bit of roof hoping," said Ranma as leaned back in his chair.

"Do you have enough people who can roof hop, whatever you mean by that? Nary a one of mine can."

"That's easy; hey I taught Tomas how to do it yesterday. Have enough people to kill the boss."

xxxxxxx

The next day Minako said goodbye to her parents hoping she would still be alive at the end of the day and they went to carry out their plan. Ranma, Makoto, Tomas and Minako roof hoped to the top of the Dark Agency building. Ranma sent "_We are in position now."_

Artemis, who was in human form for the battle, told Dar, "It's time to attack."

xxxxxxx

Genma stood in front of the Ainos and looked uncomfortable for a minute then he formally bows, "Sensei, could you teach me a parenting kata."

Now this completely confused Mr. Aino, but since his wife had spent some time around Ranma and Makoto over the past few days she was able to figure out what he was talking about. "You want us to teach you to be a better parent?"

Before Genma could say yes that is what he meant, there was another knock on the door. When Mrs. Aino opened the door several men in identical suits were standing outside of it. "You called us and said the cat we were looking for is here."

"Oh yes, wouldn't you come in," said Mrs. Aino gesturing, "My daughter adopted this stray cat recently, when I saw your poster I thought it might be your cat.."

The men stepped into the room, "The cat has a spot on his face that looks like a crescent moon right."

As Mrs. Aino nodded Genma notices how inhuman these 'men' looked and felt, like they were just wearing the skins of humans like an uncomfortable suit.

"And your daughter, where is she now?" asked one of the men.

"She's out, why is that any business of yours?" Replied Mr. Aino

"A pity, I was hoping we could take care of everything at once," The man's arm changed into a blade which he proceeded to bring down towards Mr. Aino with the intent to cut him in half. Genma caught the man's arm before the blade reached its target and was thrown into the wall for his pains. Genma got back up in moments, by that time all of the 'men' had transformed into yoma.

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Artemis sent _"We have the enemy fully engaged"_

Ranma said, "Ok time to beat up some monster" The team went down the stairs that opened to the roof and knocked down the door of the first room on the left, which the plans said, was the boss's office. Contrary to normal in this type of situation, the head of the Dark Agency, Danburite, was actually in his office.

Now Danburite was powerful and he probably could have defeated any one of the group attacking him, but there were four people attacking him and by now they knew how to work together. He didn't stand a chance. With his last breath Danburite said that at least he would have his revenge on them and that they would find this victory to be an empty one.

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When they made it to the Aino house, the front door was swinging open on one hinge. Inside was a bloody mess that there was not one living thing in. The yoma bodies were already rotting, but the three human bodies were still recognizable, whether this was a good thing or not is uncertain.

Minako arrived a few moments before the others and they found her crying over the body of her mother. She had their blood on her cloths, she had dropped her transformation and her face was tearstained.

"Minako…" called out Tomas but before he could continue everyone heard a police car pull up and two policemen come up the walk

"What's going on here," yelled one of the cops as he came up.

Minako wasn't thinking very clearly at the moment, for an obvious reason, and she thought the cop was accusing Sailor V, her, of killing her parents. After all it was not wonder that he would think that she did have blood all over her. The fact that she was no longer transformed and few people would think a 14 year old girl was a killer completely slipped her mind. "It wasn't my fault," she choked out as she ran off.

"Wait we…" called out the other cop but he was unable to catch her before she disappeared. "Smooth move idiot," the cop said to his partner as they went back to the crime scene. The monsters had by now rotted away to bones, so were bagged as evidence.

The next day the story was on the front page of the newspaper. They identified two of the bodies as Mr. and Mrs. Aino, the owners of the house. The third body was identified to be that of Genma Saotome. The article further said that when someone was sent over to the residence of Genma it was found to be completely empty. There was no sign of Genma's son or adopted daughter. The police have no clue as to the whereabouts of the missing teenagers or what exactly happened that night.

Vocabulary

Bardic magic – any force that uses music as a focus

Mage bolt – a basic magic attack


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own this stuff, well except for Tomas

French

Ranma was not having much luck finding any work. He had overheard some about an archaeology dig that might need Labors, but his knowledge of French wasn't the best so he wasn't sure if it would be a good idea or not. He was glad, although he might not admit it out loud, that Tomas had decided to go with them and they had some gifts from the Fay such as a book of magic and arms and armor for Ranma. Ranma looked at his pendant and remembered being given the armor that was now sealed in it. That Titania lady, boy was she beautiful, had told him that he needed arms and armor to be a knight.

"What do ya mean I got two arms," Ranma pointed at his arms.

The steward sweatdropped "Lady Titania meant weapons like a sword, sir."

"Oh, so you need a sword to be a knight, no one told me that. Where do I get one?"

Titania laughed, "Do not worry I will give you a sword, a shield and a suit of armor." Then seeing the look on Ranma's face, "Don't worry the armor will be easy to move in." Titania put her hand on Ranma's forehead, "And I give you my blessing. The blessing of a high Fay is no small thing." Then she explained that the Faye couldn't get them back to Japan because of 'Extraterritorial' something or other, which meant basically that Oberon's Court although they had contacts over there they had never seen the need for a formal treaty with anyone over there. Not that that was important right now, now he needed to find out about this dig.

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When you are busking it is important to put aside all of your problems, heartache and your grumbling stomach, if you want to have people drop enough money in your hat for you to be able to eat tonight. Minako had learned this lesson well in the last few weeks. It had originally been Tomas's idea that he and Minako try doing some busking, since they were not suited to working as day labors like Ranma and Makoto were. The idea was a success and Tomas and Minako were able to contribute as much if not more at to the common purse which was more aptly called 'Are we gonna have enough to eat tonight?' She was glad to have something useful to concentrate on.

It had been a good day today, not only had they made enough for food tonight, but they might be able to save a little money for later. It was now time to go see if Ranma and Makoto had any luck. As they were packing up Tomas's lute a man who was walking by dropped a scroll he was carrying.

"You dropped your scroll," Minako glances at the title of the scroll, "Of Council Records for the Year of 4074"

The man looked rather distracted as he said thank you, took the scroll and walked off.

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Indiana Jones was an old man even though he didn't look like it. It had been fifty some odd years since he had drunk from the Holy Grail. He had not aged one day since then, but everyone around him had continued to age, most of his friends were by now dead of old age or in a nursing home. So he started to once more research the Holy Grail to find a way out of this nightmare of immortality. Once he started his research he was surprised to find that the Grail was much older then had been thought.

The Grail's history apparently stretched back to the ancient and little known period of history called the Silver Millennium. At that period of time there was a thriving civilization that spanned all of the planets of the Solar system (including Pluto which is still a planet no matter what some people say). Then a catastrophe happened and the whole civilization collapsed suddenly leaving only a few clues that it existed, what exactly this catastrophe was he was hoping to find out here.

Doctor Jones would soon find out more then he probably wanted to know about the Silver Millennium and its Senshi, but he didn't know this at the moment. So instead he was worrying about the manpower shortage he was having at excavation of the ruins to the north of town. 'At first there was no one who would believe old stories, but the Dansal's body was found mutilated and people started to get scared. I could get them to work but there might…'

He was so busy thinking that he didn't notice he lost one of the scroll he was carrying until a girl said, "You dropped your scroll of Council Records for the Year of 4074"

"Thank you," he said without really thinking about it. 'Maybe I can find some people who aren't from around here, like that girl who handed me back my scroll. She looked Japanese and was speaking English is obviously a traveler, poor kid' Indy stopped in his tracks 'wait she said my scroll of Council Records. How did she know? It took me two weeks to translate that title.' He turned and ran back to where that girl had been but she was gone.

"Did you see where that girl who was here went?" Indy asked a nearby stall owner.

"Girl, oh you mean Minako? Her and Tomas sing over in that corner. I think they might be staying in that old barn on the east side of town that is two steps away from falling down, couple of other kids there to."

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"Where the hell am I now?" .

"You are in France, Ryouga," said Artemis, "If you wait here then Makoto, Ranma and the others will be back soon."

Ryouga turned around and looked at the talking cat. "Thanks, you're Artemis, right?"

"Yes," Artemis said as Ryouga took off his pack and plopped on the grass, "Everyone is out trying to earn some money, so we can continue traveling towards Japan. They left the cat to watch their stuff."

Some might wonder why Ryouga didn't think it was at all odd to be talking to a cat; those people don't know how bad Ryouga's sense of direction was. Artemis on the other hand was just glad Ryouga was here because his presence, ironically enough, would make things less depressing. He would at the least cheer up Makoto. As Artemis thought this who should appear but Makoto.

"Got into another fight, we better be moving on soon or we'll get into trouble with the cops," said Makoto not looking around and so not seeing Ryouga until he spoke up asking what happened. He knew it wasn't like Makoto to get into fights unless necessary.

"Some guys can be real jerks," she didn't mention that one guy suggested a different way for Makoto to make some money, which caused Makoto to punch him and the fight to start. Then she put he head on Ryouga's shoulder and cried. She cried more for what a mess things were and, yes, that the idiot that had been raising her was gone, then for any group of jerks.

After Makoto cried on his shoulder for a while Ryouga said "Sorry I got lost can't even be there when you need me."

"Hey its ok if you hadn't learned all those languages and taught us them then we would be in a lot a trouble now and you are here for me now, aren't ya," said Makoto then with a swift change of mood, "Now I feel like doing some cooking. Do you have anything that needs cooking or do you just have those instant ramen containers that you are so fond of?"

"Come on I'm not that bad," Ryouga goes over to his pack and starts to pull things out of it, "Some rice, part of an onion, some random spices, that's something at least, right."

Artemis had been keeping quiet to give the two some time alone, but he decided to speak up now so he could offer his help with the preparations, "I can get some fish from the river," and because he liked fish.

When Ranma, Minako, and Tomas came up to the barn, they were assaulted by the smell of good food. It was a simple meal, but very well made. Where Tomas had eaten at many feasts the food he was eating now tasted better then all of them, maybe it was because he knew the work that went into it now. He had never thought about food much until recently, but then his life had changed a lot recently. Things had changed ever since he had helped the others escape from the police by bringing them Underhill. The night he had done that he had overheard Lord Oberon and Lady Titania talking.

"… do you think of our guests?" Titania asked her husband.

"My thought is they are good children, but they will not be here long. The girls have things to do in the world even if they don't want to think about that right now. As for Ranma if he stays around long there will be fights among the ladies of the court over him."

"Verily he is a handsome lad with a well formed body."

"He will definitely be leaving soon, besides it is time for that sword you gave him to go back into the world." Oberon then sensed someone at the door, "Come in Tomas. How goes things with our guests?"

"Minako finally fell asleep after crying on my shoulder for an hour. I wish there was something I could do to help, I feel so useless," Tomas was quiet for a moment then he got down on one knee "Mi Lord and Lady please give me leave to make my journeyman travels."

"I take it you want to travel with our guests when they leave," said Oberon.

"Yes, I find the thought of them leaving without me disquieting."

Titania asked, "Might it be that our young bard has been hit by one of cupid's arrows?"

Tomas blushed, "I don't know I would like to find out though."

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It took Doctor Jones a while to get some more information and find the barn that those kids were in. How come one of them could read the writing from a civilization that had ended over five thousand years ago and why would such a person be begging for money in a small town.

As he came up to the barn he heard one of them talking in Japanese. "A letter from Haruka great." There was a pause then, "Looks like she's having her own problems. Here I'll read it out loud."

I am sorry for your losses. It sounds like in the end Genma ended up showing more honor then my own father. I have recently found out that my father has been having dealings with a Yakaza clan for years. I had to turn him in to the police. We, Officer Itsuyu and I, were able to take care of this without much damage to the Tenou family honor, not that I care much about that right now.

I found out about my father's involvement with the yakuza from researching

what Genma did to offend them so badly. Genma overheard them talking most likely about the next shipment of slaves. I found out about this after I got

beaten up by one of my father's 'enforcers.' I turned him in as soon as I could.

I haven't spoken to my mother since then.

Sorry I didn't mean to talk about my own problems when you have your own

to worry about. Since the two of you never lose I'm sure you won't lose to

your current situation. Now I better give this to Ryouga before he wanders

off.

After the letter was read another voice said "Guys I don't think we are alone anymore."

Indy sensed something coming towards him and he ducked under it and rolled into the barn "I come in peace" he yelled in accented Japanese.

"What do you want?"

"To offer you a job possibly?" Indiana said a bit surprised at how fast the boy could move.

"Yeah right, why would you want to hire us and who are you anyway?"

"I'm Indiana Jones. I am an archaeologist."

"You the one that is in charge of that dig?" asked Ranma as Ryouga walked over and picked up the bandana he had thrown.

"Yes," Indy was wondering how in the world a bandana could cut though a board, well it didn't matter he had his gun with him.

"Don't think you need more laborers enough to come out here in the middle of the night," said Ranma,

"Laborers, that's not why I am here," he pulled the scroll he had dropped earlier out; "It took me two weeks to translate the title to this. Your friend, Minako, was able to read it without any problems, like it was just a normal document."

Artemis recognized the style of scroll as what was used for the Royal Council records during the Silver Millennium, as a matter of fact it looked like Rothos had been the on who made the end pieces. _Ranma I think Minako might be remembering how to read the script from her past life._

"That makes sense," Whoops he said that out loud, "Ya studying the Silver Millennium aren't ya?"

Indy replied that yes he was and explained some about the job he wanted to hire them for.

"Please give us a chance to talk this over amongst our selves," said Tomas bowing, then he and the others went over to the far corner of the barn.

"We should be careful, this might be a trap."

"We don't have much of a choice. We can't keep up what we're doing for much longer, ya know" said Makoto

You're right, haven't heard anything bad about him, besides if he tries anything we can beat him and get away," said Ranma.

"I'm not so sure about that, but Makoto is right we don't have much of a choice." They get out of the huddle and go tell Doctor Jones they agree.

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When they got to the dig site there was a big commotion going on I'm telling you it's the guardian of those ruins.

You have been watching too much TV, Alain. There has never been any stories about this ruin having a guardian. This must be the work of the Devil. Doctor Jones must have offended him and now we will all die for It. the man who said this was middle aged and apparently a devout Christian from the way he was crossing himself.

Offending the bad guys is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

Ignoring the fight those two were having Tomas kneeled down next to the body. The man had been sliced halfway though the torso vertically. The attacker had avoided any vial organs and let his victim die from the bleeding, yet there was very little blood around. It was a Red Cap that did this, look at the lack of blood around the wound

Aren't Red Caps a British monster? asked Alain, who if he hadn't been watching to much TV then he had been playing too many RPs or something.

To this statement Tomas replied He must have decided to move. Isn't globalization wonderful?

I don't care about how it got here. I want to know how you get rid of it said Indiana, So what do we do?

Who is this boy, Doctor Jones?

I just hired him to help solve our current problems, Actually Indy was rather surprised that Tomas seemed to know what he was doing, but he wasn't going to say that.

Iron works well on them, said Tomas.

Heard that reciting from the bible can make them turn and run, said one of the workers at the same time as Tomas.

No I'm afraid that is not true, during the middle ages they commonly made crosses out of iron. Now those did protect them from certain nasty beings because they were iron, but they didn't know that. So they thought it must be what the cross symbolizes that the Gobs are scared of, which is understandable but false. They decided that the same must be true for the words of their god. Now the funny thing about this is…

Tomas was stopped by Ranma who said Tomas you're getting off the point.

Oh sorry, anyway if you hear anything that sounds like the beating of flax then the Red Cap is near. So throw some iron at him and run away yelling so we know where you are and can come help you.

When it was reveled that Tomas was a bard most of the workers calmed down. Many of them had heard tales of bards and the fact that their boss had hired someone who knew how to handle this monster helped as well. Of course they didn't know that Doctor Jones had found out about Tomas being a bard at the same time as them.

As soon as she got the chance amidst the tumult of everyone trying to figure out where they were going to stay, Makoto wrote a letter to Haruka and gave it to Ryouga. It was a good thing that she did because soon after that Ryouga got lost.

The next day dawned bright and early with some martial arts practice which Indy and some of the workers caught the end of. They were all most impressed. After morning practice was over, Minako went with Doctor Jones to translate some scrolls.

"First we are going to go over some of the scrolls that I have. You should know some background about what I'm studying and also you might pick up something I missed," said Indy handing her a rather battered up scroll which she stared to read.

The Royal Family of the Moon has several magical items at their disposal. One is the Ginguishou which has been owned by a member of the Serenity line since before it was a royal line. It is used now for the same things it was used for in the wars that preceded the creation of the Moon Kingdom, healing and defense.

Another of the relics of the Royal family is the Holy Grail. It was given to Queen Serenity, the third of the name, by the Golden Dragon. All the words below this are illegible due to the ravishes of time.

"The Golden Dragon is mentioned in several other legends that concern the Holy Grail, including the legend of Sir Galahad," said Doctor Jones

"Sir Galahad was one of King Arthur's Knights wasn't he? My…" Minako looks sad all of the sudden, "My parents mentioned him once when they were talking."

Indy noticed the change in mood and decided to ask a question he had been wondering about since he had met her, "What happened to your parents, Minako?"

"Some Yoma killed them. Ranma's father tried to stop them, but he got killed too."

There was an uncomfortable pause then Minako asked, "So what about your family?" trying to turn the tables on Doctor Jones.

Indy spoke with a bit more candor then he might usually because of what Minako had told him, "My mother died of scarlet fever when I was a kid. My father died about forty years ago of old age; the Grail didn't stop his ageing like it did mine, not sure why." He pulls open a scroll, "This scroll talks about the Holy Grail. One thing it describes is how it changes its form to match what people think it looks like, which is why it looked like a plain clay cup when I saw it."

Minako looked over the scroll. It detailed in rather vague terms the powers of the Holy Grail. One line stood out to her, 'Can grant a life as long as the life of a Senshi.' When she read this she paled; wouldn't you if you just realized that you were going to outlive almost everyone you know.

"You ok?" asked Indy

"Yes I was just thinking how sad it was that those girls lived so long."

"What girls? Oh you mean the Sailor Senshi. I wouldn't worry about it; after all they lived a long time ago."

Minako felt like yelling out 'but I'm a Sailor Senshi', but instead she said "Yeah, I guess so," and they went back to translating the scrolls.

xxxxxxxx

As Indy parted ways with Minako after they finished looking at the scroll, he heard a voice and went to investigate. "Ok let's try this." That sounded like Ranma thought Indy as there is a loud sound of rushing wind in the wind he thought he heard, "Don't put too much power into it," then the noise stopped.

When Indiana went closer where he could see what was going on, he saw Ranma sitting on the ground with his cat nearby, all of the tents close by looked like they had gone though a hard storm except for the fact that they were all dry. "Should I ask what happened here?"

"Um, no"

Ranma, tell me what you were doing?"

"Magic," Ranma pulled out Titania's book, "I've got a book."

Now where Indiana Jones had some experience with magic he had no real idea of how someone got trained in its use, "Well be more careful, all right."

"Don't worry I just put too much power into the spell, won't do that again."

"You better get things fixed up before the men get back to the tents or they will be most displeased."

"Aw man," despite his words Ranma really didn't mind fixing up the tents and he was happy that he now knew that his elemental affinity was wind, that had been the purpose of that spell that Artemis had just had him do after all.

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The nest few days were pretty much the same, Ranma managed to not have anymore magical mishaps, Minako learned how to access her chi some and Tomas played his lute for the workers around the campfire every night.

Then one night after Tomas had just finished up his set there was a cry and a man ran into the circle of light that the fire gave off. "The beating of flax, over there," he pointed off into the darkness.

Tomas arrived at the site first so the others took the time to transform. Ranma pulled the lines of force coming from his pendent and he was clothed in his armor with his sword by his side and his shield in hand. The armor was green enameled combination chain mail and plate armor. As Titania promised it was lightweight and spelled to be a perfect fit. The shield had a stallion with the symbol of Jupiter on its forehead. Titania took Ranma calling himself Jupiter Knight very seriously or she was playing a joke on him, it's hard to tell sometimes with the Faye.

"Jupiter Power! Make Up!"

"Venus Power! Make Up!"

Makoto and Minako also transformed, but I don't think that I need to describe their transformations, now do I.

The Red Cap was mostly human shaped. It was about half the size of a normal human and had talons in the place of fingers. By the time the others caught up with Tomas the Red Cap's grey hair was matted with blood from the many minor wounds that Tomas had inflicted on it with sword and claws. Ranma drew his sword, Excalibur, rather clumsily I might add. He was not an expert of the double edged broad sword yet. And when Makoto distracted the Red Cap with a Supreme Thunder he sliced it in half.

Indy had also heard the yell and he arrived in time to see the transformations, "Why are you wearing those silly outfits?" he then remembered something from his research namely the description of the Sailor Senshi, those two girls he had hired matched that description now, "Your Sailor Senshi aren't you? Did you decide I was getting to close in my research and something needed to be done?" He was mad at being played for a fool, not that he actually had been but he thought he was.

Tomas recognized this and replied, "Sir if that were true, then would we be stupid enough to transform in front of you?"

Indy thought about this, "You have a point, so please explain what is going on?"

Busking – To play music or perform entertainment in a public place, usually while soliciting money.


	4. Chapter 4

Timeline 4536

Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I don't own this stuff, well except for Tomas

French

"If we could get this boulder out of the way, then we could get into these ruins," said Doctor Jones.

"Right," Ranma starts punching the rock.

"I don't thi…" Indy shuts up when he saw that Ranma's second punch left some major cracks in the rock and the next punch caused a large part of the rock to collapse under the weight of the stuff on top of it "I need to ask you about how you are able to do some of the more unbelievable things that you do, like lifting twice your own weight or jumping over two stories, or braking fucking large rocks."

"Ya mean when I use chi? What do you want to know?" asked Ranma his enthusiasm for the Art showing clearly on his face.

"What is it, how does it work and who can use it?" replied Indy

"Don't want to know much do ya," yes Ranma was being sarcastic, "Let's see, chi's lifeforce sorta. It works by, well that changes ya know depending on who ya ask. Stuff Tomas can do is completely different then what I can do," Ranma stopped and took a breath and tried to think of how to answer the last part "hypowhatisly…"

"Hypothetically"

"Right that word, anyone can use chi, but the way it flows in the body changes. At about my age ya get a big upwelling of chi and can learn stuff real fast. After that if ya don't have any chi control by then ya won't get any."  
Indy remembered what they were suppose to be doing, "Right , now that we have the boulder out of the way, lets clear up this rubble.

xxxxxxxxx

"Looks like I'll have something to celebrate while the others are celebrating Bastille Day," said Indy when they were done, "What are the plans for that anyway?"

One of the workers answered Indy's question "The town will be having a dance with free food and champagne. There will be fireworks and I saw a band of Gypsies setting up."

Ranma's ears perked up at the words free food and he wondered just how important this day was that they were giving away something so important, "What's Bastille Day anyway?"

"It's French Independence Day, on the 14th of July a group of common townsmen stormed the Bastille and this act signaled that start of the French Revolution." Explained Indy, "Ranma could you get your friends? I want just people who can deal with traps to come in at first."

"What kinda traps?" asked Ranma, "Minako doesn't know much about them."

"If what I expect is true is correct then her and Makoto won't have to worry."

"Ah" thought Ranma 'the traps won't hurt the Sailor Senshi, I guess' as he ran to get the others. He was back faster then many would think possible.

xxxxxxxx

Makoto leaned against a wall and her hand brushed across a gem embedded in the wall. "If we find anything interesting call him, huh. Just empty rooms so far." Then the wall she was leaning against disappeared and Makoto used her superior martial Arts skills to fall down the stairs with a little bit more control then a normal person.

"You ok?"

"Yeah," Makoto looked around the room she is now in, "Ya better get Doctor Jones. He'll want to see this."

The room was, or rather had been, someone's study. The long ago person had obviously been a scholar of some note but yet there weren't as many books or other things you would expect to see in a scholar's study. Some of the things that were there seemed to be of the highest quality while others pieces seemed to be homemade.

"It appears that what I heard about a man from the moon living here was true," Doctor Jones said looking at the crescent moon carved on many things, "This is a big find Makoto thank you."

xxxxxxxxx

"I wish there was someway to see into the past and find out what the stuff was used for," commented Indy as they were cataloging the things Makoto had accidentally found.

"Actually there is," said Tomas

"Is that right?"

Yes, since Bards are the keepers of historical lore, there have been a number of ways made to look into the past. Some of those are more complex then others," Tomas looked like he wanted to say more, but he stopped talking.

"Which of the methods would you think is the best to do tonight? That festival is coming up so we don't have the time for anything too complex right now."

Tomas thought for a moment "The best way for this instance would be to call fourth the history of an object. It just requires a song and a focusing of awen. The scenes shown don't last more then a couple of hours. Only problem with it is that is not safe to use on magical items though, so will have to chose some thing that isn't magic, but we'll have seen what we need to know."

Indy held up the pen case they had found in the study, "Would this work?"

"That will work just fine, could you go get the others while I prepare a few things."

Tomas started to play 'Only Time' and focused his awen on the pen case and after a few minutes and orb appeared above it. The orb grew until it was about the size of a normal TV screen, then pictures started to from in the orb and then there was the sound; first the sound of a hammer then voices. The first few glimpses of the past weren't very useful, although Indy found them interesting. They were of the pen case being made and then being sold to a middle aged man who said it was for his son.

"So you will be taking up a position as a teacher at the Palace tomorrow, will you not?" said the middle aged man.

"Yes father" this was said by a nervous looking young man who had an obvious resemblance to the older man. He had gotten the job because, aside from his skill as a scholar, he had this little talent called aura reading. He could tell the state of a person's health, state of mind and other things, very good things for a teacher to the royal family of Jupiter to have.

"That is good. I may not be the best at showing it, but I am proud of you," He picks up the pen case, "Here this is for you I know it will serve you well in your new position."

"Thank you father. I will be sure to bring honor to the family name."

A few years passed without much happening. Gares' student was not the most attentive, but he was able to get her to learn what she needed to.

Ow let go, my ear is not a handle," although they looked almost nothing alike everyone knew that was Makoto in her past life.

"If you don't come to your classes on time then it is, Princess Jupiter."

Being reminded of this doesn't help, "I get to visit the Moon so infrequently so why do I have to spend half of that time in classes."

"The other princess all have classes the same way and some of them come to the Moon even less. Now the quicker you settle down the sooner we can get done"

The princess sat down quickly and pretended to be an attentive student and so Gares started to lecture on the wars that proceeded the creation of the Moon Kingdom, how at one point Mars was allied with Mercury and at another point they were fighting each other and how the Earth wisely stayed out of the fighting. "Now the Rulers of each of the planets had made, whether though bioengineering, magic or some combination of the two, yoma, for lack of a better word, to support their soldiers. The longer the wars dragged on the worst the fighting got and the more powerful the yoma created were. .Until so much magic saturated the battlefields that a new being was born out of the dead. It was called Melliaca and it hated its creators. It called to its service all of the yoma that had not become a part of it and commanded them to attack each of the planets environmental systems."

"There was one lady who not only kept her compassion during this time, but would go out onto the battlefields to heal the wounded and remind them that they were all still human regardless of anything else. Now all the leaders found her to be one of the most annoying people they had ever met, but they respected her too much to kill or imprison. She had a magical gem that she used for healing and protection. This gem was called the Ginguishou. I trust that you have all heard of it?"

"It would be an idiot who didn't know about that."

"Yes, anyway the lady used the Ginguishou to seal away Melliaca, but she knew that it would be back someday. She then told the leaders of each of the planets what was needed so that Melliaca could not come back. The Planetary leaders agreed to all of this with one condition; that the lady become the High queen of the Federation they were going to form. She agreed and became Queen Serenity the first. Now what Queen Serenity did in first year of her rule and how it grew to the nation we know today, we will discuss at a later date," seeing that his charge was raring to go Gares asked, "Now what is happening that you so want to go to?"

"The princess of Mercury is coming in. I would like to be there to greet her."

"Ah then provided that you promise that I will not be the target of any of the practical jokes the two of you come up with you may go," Dago, the teacher for the Princess of Mercury, had complained many times about Jupiter's princess being a bad influence on his charge, but it really was the best way for them to learn some about math and physics.

The years passed and the Princess of Jupiter grew up to be a beautiful young lady and Gares saw to it that she was well educated. It was the night of the Grand Ball and all of the Royal families were in attendance. Due to the political tensions between the Earth and Moon everyone was pretending that the masked man in the tux was not Prince Endymion.

"Is that Beryl over there? Do you think that the Queen is negotiating with her to resolve the current dispute?"

"On a night when everyone can see Beryl's fiancé dancing with someone else, not likely. Don't forget the people of Earth do not believe that lifebonds exist." Gares friend started to say something indigent about that fact the lifebonds were sacred, when Gares looked over at Beryl, "By the gods, we had better find the Lunar guards quick."

"What why?"

"Melliaca, Beryl's aura reeks of it." Just as Gares got over to the Lunar Guards, he saw Artemis and another Moon cat who is named Luna come rushing in yelling about the Palace being attacked by the Shitennou and that the magical defenses are already down. Out of the corner of his eye Gares sees Beryl attack the Moon Princess, but he is unable to do anything about that or about the many other deaths that happen that night. The only thing he can do is get away with his life and Gares is barely able to do that with the help of the Lunar Guards. That was the night the Moon Kingdom fell and the vision ends with Gares making it to earth with a bunch of other refuges.

The music stopped and Tomas sagged to the ground. "I forgot how tiring that was. Where's that drink that I put aside?"

"Here it is," said Minako handing it to him.

"What's in that anyway?" asked Ranma

"A mixture of herbs that help to body metabolize some of the ambivalent awen in the air," he looks at Ranma and Makoto, "And no I am not going to tell you what herbs. It does have side effects among which is the fact that you can't project any awen for several hours."

"Ya mean ya can't do any chi attacks, man that sucks."

The town of Brive-la-Gaillarde was all dressed up for the coming festivities. There were banners hanging from all the buildings around the town square; many of the banners had the French flag on them its three colors displayed proudly. The sound system was all set up for the musicians would be playing for the dance.

"…Just relax and try to enjoy the evening. We will probably be moving on soon, that is if you don't mind hanging around me longer," said Indy.

"Depends on which way ya are going. We're heading east, want to go home."

"I'd say I am heading in that direction too. Nothing interesting north of here or in Spain and I can't go west easily."

xxxxxxx

The festivities were in full swing. Artemis had been able to get a big bowl of cream from some old lady. Tomas and Minako had been doing a bit of busking earlier, but they had decided to stop for a while to do some dancing. Some girl had managed to drag Ranma out on to the dance floor and it looked like several other girls were 'discussing' who would dance with him next. Makoto wasn't dancing with anyone; She was kinda wishing that Ryouga would show up though. Indy decided that now would be a good time to go see an old friend of his, so he went off to the Gypsy encampment.

xxxxxxxx

"…So the green haired lady whose outfit was one to set a young man's heart afire said she would kill anyone who tried to use the magic of the Moon for evil. There was a titanic battle between the Evil Sorcerer and the Good Lady. They contested for many hours, but in the end the Good Lady won. In honor of her victory she was given the name of Dama Mantuitor, Lady Savior. Then unlike many heroes she stayed and helped people recover from the ravages of the Sorcerer before she left."

As the crowd of kids left after the story ended, Indy walked over to the Gypsy storyteller, "That was an interesting story, Tshilaba."

"Ah Doctor Jones it is good to see you. Yes I find that it is a very interesting story. It is said to be several hundred years old. I first heard it when we were traveling to the east of here. They have several paintings of the Dama Mantuitor in their Town Hall, the story is correct about the outfit, such a short skirt," Tshilaba had met Indy before when, well I'm sure you don't want to hear that.

"Where would I find those people? I would like to ask them about that story."

"They are an insular people; if you want to talk to them you will have to be introduced by someone they know," Tshilaba said anticipating the next question Indy would ask.

"And will you be going in that direction soon?"

"Maybe," Tshilaba smiled, "If you and that bard I keep hearing about are willing to teach our children, then you may come with us."

"Why me? Surely you can find someone better. The only people I have ever taught were adults and that was a good few years ago," Indy had been expecting to be asked for money or maybe an artifact or a story not this.

"It is hard to get a schoolteacher to come with us. We will not stay in one place and even if we did, then the schools don't like the Romami, our children won't get fair treatment."

"You know I can not force Tomas to do anything."

"Anyone who tries to force a Bard to do something deserves to have something bad happen to them. It is not only the Good Neighbors who follow the Convent."

"I would like for Makoto, Minako and Ranma to learn how to defend against and get rid of possessions. My research shows that they will need it someday."

Tshilaba noticed Indy's slip but she figured he was talking about the boy carrying Excalibur not the Sailor Senshi, "Nothing is going to come after them anytime soon, right?"

"No, just planning ahead."

"Then it is a good deal, teaching for teaching."

xxxxxxxx

Andre was trying to work up the courage to ask the beautiful, brown haired, Japanese girl if she wanted to dance. He had heard some scary rumors about what she did to guys who acted in a ungentlemanly manner towards her, but asking her to dance was not ungentlemanly no was it. Just as he was about to try his luck, this young man with a very large backpack who looked to also be Japanese asked him where Brive-la-Gaillarde was.

Before Andre could tell the odd black haired boy that he was standing in the town square of Brive-la-Gaillarde, the girl he had been eyeing ran up and gave the boy a big hug. "You were able to find your way back, Ryouga. I'm so happy"

"It is good to see you again Makoto. You are looking better then you were last time." Ryouga see that there were people dancing, "Um would you like to dance?"

xxxxxxxxx

The next morning Indy said that he had arranged for transportation for them last night and they needed to get over there and catch it.

As they set off Makoto asked one of the Gypsies "So where are we headed?"

"Transylvania, don't worry the vampires don't bite; They use the blood banks now a days."


	5. Chapter 5

Timeline 4536

Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I don't own this stuff, well except for Tomas

Hello Makoto,

My mother tried to send me to a boarding school, but I got thrown out after a week for 'sparing' with the disciplinarian. So now I have my own apartment. I'm going to the same school I was before Mother tried to send to that boarding school. I'm sure I have quite a reputation there by now. I wonder what that girl, who has hair the color of the sea, that I see in the halls sometimes thinks of my reputation, good things I hope.

I decided to get some more martial arts training. I already use many so Anything Goes moves that I picked up from the two of you, so I went to find a dojo to get officially trained in it. Apparently the only Dojo that teaches Anything Goes is the Tendo Dojo. It didn't have any students at all when I first went there although there are a few now. Soun Tendo, The Dojo's sensei, was very teary eyed when I told him I wanted to learn Anything Goes and then when I told him why I wanted learn, on account of knowing you, he was even worse. After he calmed down again he gladly accepted me as a student.

Despite the fact that he can be a little bit overemotional and the fact that he hasn't actively practiced much since his wife died, I think I will learn a lot from him. He has a great store of knowledge about martial arts, especially chi manipulation.

A bit after I finished talking with the sensei, I was looking around and I met Soun's youngest daughter. I was just being my normal self when she yelled that all guys are perverts and tried to hit me with a chi mallet, which is a cool technique, so I threw her into the side of her house and told her I was a girl and I would be glad to prove it. She didn't take me up on it; turns out she has been having trouble with the boys at her school.

Hi Haruka,

Glad to hear that you are getting formally trained in Anything Goes. I'll still be able to kick your butt though. Genma once mentioned to Ranma that he would like to have him teach at the Tendo Dojo someday and Ranma said he actually sounded serious for once.

Anyway we're traveling though Romania right now with a bunch of Romami, you might know them as gypsies, and learning all kinds of interesting things from them. We're headed for some little town, called Telra, that has some interesting stories about the magic of the Moon that might have some clues…..

Makoto looked up from the letter she was writing to see Vadoma, the Gypsy woman who was teaching her and Minako how to fight against possessions among other things. Ranma was getting taught by Vadoma's brother instead for some reason that Makoto didn't understand.

"Done with your letter, dear?"

"Just a sec," Makoto said as she quickly wrote the last bit of the letter to her best friend, "I am now, just have to get it to Ryouga b'fore he leaves."

Vadoma smiled at the look on Makoto's face when she said Ryouga's name, "Go ahead, if that boy ever gets that talent of his under control, then he will be amazing."

"He's getting better at that," said Makoto as she left to go find Ryouga.

xxxxxxxx

"You are going to Telra are you not, young lady?"

The well dressed Japanese girl looked at the old lady "My name Kaori Daikoku and yes I am heading there. My fiancé is there."

"It is dangerous there. This will give you protection from the vampires that lair there," said the old lady holding up a cross, "such a pretty lady should not be without protection."

Kaori was about to take the cross when a young man about her age came up. "Grandma are you playing jokes on travelers again?"

"Oh why must you always spoil my fun?"

"Now you shouldn't scare travelers, it's bad for tourism."

"Posh, why would we more tourism anyway, Have a bunch of idiots walking over my fields and getting into God only knows what trouble in the hills, No thank you…"

The old lady was stopped in her rant by Kaori, "Could you please tell me what you are talking about. I need to know what kind of trouble my fiancé has gotten himself into."

The young man was quick to assure her, "Don't worry the werewolves don't bite and the vampires get their blood from the local blood bank, so he will be fine," he reached into his pocket "Here's a brochure."

As Kaori walked away she heard, "I can't believe you wasted your money getting those printed."

As they were driving to Telra, Kaori looked over the brochure she had gotten. Most of it was the normal BS about how great the place was, but the way it was worded gave it a creepy undertone. She thought the history part might be more interesting though.

For many years the werewolves and vampires were in conflict over the Convent. The Vampires said that it was impossible for them to eat and not violate the restriction on not doing long-term enchantments on Non-knowing humans, that is those humans who don't know about magic. The werewolves, on the other hand, said that the vampires could either get free will donations of go after Knowing humans for their dietary needs.

This conflict ended in 1826 thanks to James Blundell, who invented various instruments that he used for blood transfusions. Those instruments were also found to be useful for safely extracting blood to give to the vampires.

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Telra was a small town up in the mountains and the road leading up to it was full of potholes. "Man this would be the prefect place for the Road building School of Martial Arts to train," said Ranma.

"There's Martial Arts Road Builders?!" exclaimed one of the Gypsies that was in the back of the truck with Ranma.

"Yep, Pops got into a fight with some of them."

Ramon was himself unsurprised to hear that that there were such things, after all he had heard many stories from Ranma while he was teaching him, "They don't use many cars around here so, pretty much the only one, besides ours, you will see is the Blood Mobil. It comes every week for obvious reasons." Ramon looked out the front window of the converted truck, "There's Telra up ahead."

Once they got to Telra, everyone helped set up camp in an open field while Tshilaba went to talk to the Village elders.

Soon after the camp was set up one of the Village Elders came to talk to Indy "So I hear you are interested in knowing more about Dama Mantuitor, Doctor Jones?"

"Yes parts of the story I heard seem similar to what I am researching, for example the outfit that she is said to wear is the same as the one that the Sailor Senshi wore. Also what she said about not letting anyone misuse the magic of the Moon is suggestive too."

"So you think that Dama Mantuitor was a Sailor Senshi. Who were the Sailor Senshi anyway?"

"They were the guardians of the Moon Kingdom which existed during a period of time called the Silver Millennium. During the Silver Millennium there were people living on each planet of the solar system. Each of the Senshi was a member of the royal family of one of the planets," Indy explained, "As for if Dama Mantuitor was a Senshi, it is possible but I need more information before I can say for sure."

"Well then let me show you the information we have."

xxxxxxxx

"I just heard about this great place to train up in the mountains," said Makoto excitedly.

"Great, haven't had the time to get some real training in a while," replied Ranma, "and I do have two students to teach. Artemis ya have to be in human form for this."

"Um are you sure that…" Artemis started to say when a young boy turned into a wolf as he ran by, "Alright I guess no one will think it odd to see me change"

"I take it that your friend can transform," said a middle aged man as he walked up.

"Yeah, why do ya ask?" replied Ranma as he quickly turned around to face the man.

"No reason, I just couldn't help but overhear. He may want to visit the tailor over there for some transformation friendly cloths." He turned and pointed to a shop then turned to Tomas and formally stated, "We welcome a Bard into our midst and hope he will give ear to our troubles."

"I will willingly listen to your trouble and do what I may to solve them," Tomas said completing the formal request for a bard's help. He then turned to the others, "I hope you have a good time training. I have some Bardic business to attend to."

As Ranma and the others left the man said, "We are glad that there is a bard here. Some of the youngsters have been getting 'restless'. Maybe having a bard around will calm them down before anything happens," said an old man who was one of the village elders.

"I'll see what I can do, but you must remember that I am just a journeyman at the beginning of my travels. So I am not the most well versed in dealing with such problems," replied Tomas

"Nonsense everyone knows that the lady who raised you is a master at this type of problem. You must have picked up something from her."

"It is true that Lady Titania is good at negotiations but do remember that is because she is good at making odd friends, not because she is good at manipulating people or just lucky like a certain one eyed idiot I could name thinks. Many times when things are the darkest, she has been able to pull off victory somehow. She is a very compassionate person. I don't know how she does what she does."

xxxxxxx

As Doctor Jones was looking over the writings that Dama Mantuitor had left, he mumbled, "Now what could this mean?" He then got up and left to find out where his companions had gotten to. He soon found that they were all up in the mountains training, except Tomas, so he headed up there to find them.

"How's the training going?" Indy asked Artemis as he came up, "Do you think they can spare you for a few minutes?"

"Yeah, why do you ask?""Well I could use some help figuring out a passage in Dama Mantuitor's writing and I was hoping you could help me."

"Sure better then staying around here to get beat up again," Artemis jumped up on his currently two feet, "Why do you need my help?"

"It seems that she is Sailor Pluto, so I thought you might have some insight into her writing since you are from the same culture," Indy explained as they walked back to the town Hall.

Once they got to the correct room, the first thing Artemis noticed was the painting of Pluto. "I can see why you think that they are the same person, but where did they get the painting?"

"The Village Elder said that there was an artist of some note living here at the time in Dama Mantuitor was and he created the painting from the sketches he made while she was here," said Indy as he handed Artemis a open book, "Here tell me what you think of this?"

Artemis looked at the book, "I think that I need to learn to read Romanian." He handed it back.

"Sorry, it says roughly 'but for the werewolves the spell reversed polarities so the strengths are now weaknesses."

Artemis thought about this for a minute, "There were certain things that gave the Lunar Guards extra strength, such as silver, I guess that is why werewolves are weak against silver. I'm not sure what would happen if a werewolf met a member of the Moon's royal family, doubt it would be good," Artemis shrugged, "but that is not likely to happen."

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A kid ran up the Village Elder looking rather out of breath, "There's strangers coming. I was over near the road looking for interesting rocks when I saw them come up. I don't recognize their vehicle at all."

The car proved to be a limo, with an unusually high suspension, and when it pulled up two people got out of it; a man with large ears and a young woman who it looked like was his daughter.

"May I ask why you have come to this out of the way village?"

"Ranma… is Ranma Saotome here?" asked the man with large ears.

"Yes, he's working right now," said the elder tersely, "Might I ask why you are looking for him."

At this point the young lady spoke up, "He is my fiancé."

"Ah," The Elder relaxed some, "I will show you to them."

The Elder might have said that Ranma was working, rut he was actually studying math. Doctor Jones had pointed out how useful a good education was and made Ranma promise to study, but math was so boring and annoying as well as confusing as hell. At this exact moment he was hopping that Minako would do something to provide a distraction from this stupid problem, but she was just helping Doctor Jones with his research.

"Ranma, your fiancé is here to see you," said a voice behind them.

"What do ya mean? I don't gotta fiancé," Ranma said confused as he turned to see the Village Elder coming in with a odd looking man with large ears.

"Genma forgot to tell you about your engagement before his unfortunate demise I see, but I assure you we set this up when you were little," the odd looking man said, "Here is my daughter Kaori, your fiancé." As Kaori walked into the room a beam of light hit her and made it look like she was glowing.

Ranma thought for a moment that she was cute then he realized something that made thoughts of girls disappear completely, "How did ya know Pops was dead and who are ya any way?"

"I'm Akira Daikoku, but just call me poppa. How could I not know about an international incident like that?"

Minako had been thinking this was rather romantic and that Ranma could use a nice girlfriend when she realized what the international incident he must be talking about, "What did you hear about that? Did yo-"

"Read the papers if you want to find out about it," interrupted Mr. Daikoku, "Come on Ranma you have many things to learn about the family holdings as well as Delivery Martial Arts before you marry."

Doctor Jones stepped up to this snobbish, rude man who called himself Mr. Daikoku, "Now wait just a minute her, how exactly did Genma engage Ranma to Kaori anyway?"

"I worked hard to catch the fish and gather the ingredients for my midday repast then to cook them to perfection using my family's secret recipes, but just when it was done I turned my back for just a moment to comfort my baby daughter, when I looked back a big fat lout of a martial artist had eaten my meal. When I yelled at him he moaned most pitilessly about everything that had gone wrong in his life and offered to engage his son to my daughter to pay for his meal. I had need of a male heir and I would obviously be able to raise the boy better then he could, so I agreed; but the bastard stole his son back the minute I had my back turned." Mr. Daikoku said

"Ok let me get this straight, you got taken in by a con artist and now you want his son to pay for it," said Doctor Jones, "but you're not going to settle for money, no you want to take his whole life from him. That is not fair under any moral code."

"What would some damn American know about honor?" yelled Mr. Daikoku

Ranma had opened his mouth to speak when Artemis sent to him _What are you planning to do?_

_It's a matter of family honor to marry Kaori_

Artemis sighed _And what about your personal honor, Ranma? You have commitments that need to be kept._

_What ya mean?_

_You know it would be better to talk about this face to face._

_Ya _Ranma stood up, "I gotta think about this," he said then left.

Once he left he met up with Artemis somewhere where they could talk privately. The first thing Artemis said when Ranma came up was, "Genma was not the most honorable of people, do you think that it is possible that he might have engaged you to multiple people?"

Ranma was going to deny this, but then he thought about it and remembered something, "I think Pops might have been planning to do that with my friend Ukyo."

"Now Ranma, what do you like better Ukyo or okonomaki?"

Chibi-Ranma thought about this really hard. Ukyo was fun to play with but Okonomaki was really good, but if I have Ukyo then she can make okonomaki for me like sis makes other food. "Ukyo of course, silly Pops."

"Yeah that was probably what Pops was talking about."

Artemis pounced on this "In that case I think you should worry about your personal honor rather then his."

"Yeah, but…"

"Ranma if this was just a matter of a girl then it would be no problem. It's her father that I am worried about. There is no way that his plans for your future will work with what you want to do with your life, that is unless you were planning on leaving your sister and your art," Artemis glared at Ranma banefully.

"I ain't never going to do that, you know that Artemis."

Ranma found Mr. Daikoku sitting on top of a hill looking out at the landscape. He spoke slowly trying to get his words right for once, "I've got other obligations that pru…prucl…aw hell, come before any agreement ya made with my Pops."

"And what might those other obligations be?" asked Mr. Daikoku.

"Um I can't tell you, but they're important and I'm not giving them up."

"This really is a beautiful countryside, not as nice as Japan of course, but it has lots of things that can be used by a martial artist in training. Why don't we solve this disagreement we have by using this fact."

"What day ya mean?"

"I mean we could have a little contest to decide the matter. I don't know if you have seen one, because of your upbringing and the fact that you have been of the country for so long, but they have those martial arts contests where you have to get a certain item though an obstacle course without letting it get messed up."

Despite the fact that Ranma had only the slight idea of what Mr. Daikoku was talking about he said, "Of course I know 'bout that. I've been living outside of Japan for less then a year, ya know."

"Ah then we could settle this dispute by having one of those contests, unless you don't think you can beat my daughter."

"I can beat anyone old man. I'm one of the best ya know. I'll go ask Ramon to set up a course for us."

AN: Thank you everyone who has reviewed my story. I'm sorry that I am not better about responding to your reviews, but I will try to get better about it. Oh and if anyone has any ideas for the racecourse feel free to tell me them.


	6. Chapter 6

Timeline 4536

Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I don't own this stuff, well except for Tomas

"Getting some new clothes Artemis?" asked Ranma as he came into the shop.

"Yes, how did it go with Mr. Daikoku?"

Before Ranma could answer the tailor stepped back, "Now let's see if it is properly fitted, please try transforming."

Artemis turned into his cat form then back into human form and the clothes shifted to a collar then back to clothes as he changed. "Good, good they seem to be working out fine," The tailor .rang up the purchases, "That will be 70 Leu."

"Um, I don't suppose I could barrow some money from you Ranma?"

"Aw, man forgot your wallet? You silly kitty."

"Well you try and remember little things like that when you never have before."

"Ahem," The tailor had obviously trained with Soun at some point because he did a near perfect demon head, "I want my money"

"Eep! Ah he… here you go," Nervously Ranma shoved some money into the tailors hands without looking at it. It did happen to be the right amount though.

The tailor counted out the bills, "Thank you for shopping here. I hope to see you again soon," Smiling as if nothing had happened.

As they left Ranma explained the deal he had made with Mr. Daikoku. To say that Artemis was less then pleased about it would be an understatement. "Ranma, are you crazy you know he isn't going to let you do unimportant things like say helping us save the world if he wins!"

Ranma came stomping up the steps into the house that Indiana Jones was renting during their stay. Tomas was sitting in the living room looking though some paper and trying to figure out what to do about some of the problem he was asked to deal with. After a few moments Ranma said, "I don't see why he is making such a big deal about a race."

Tomas didn't look up from the papers, "I'm not sure if it would be a good idea to do something like a race right now. The tens…."

"Come on Tomas are you going to gripe to me about risking my honor on a race. I'm not gonna lose, I'm the best after all." Ranma goes into his room slamming the door.

"Ok what was that about?" Tomas shrugs and goes back to his work. If he had figured it out he would have told Ranma, 'No I'm worried about the fact that some of the young werewolves and vampires will get into a fight,' but it is doubtful that would have changed anything, because Tomas wouldn't have been able to get the point that them getting into a fight would be a bad thing.

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Now we all know that Mr. Daikoku was talking about doing a martial arts takeout race, but due to a miscommunication on his part, he forgot to mention what he was talking about was a food item, everyone working on the race thought that the item he was referring to was a magical pendent not a highly spillable food item. That would after all make the most sense to have the item be a pendent, because they could enchant them to show who reached the goal first.

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The day of the race rose bright and clear. Many people came out to watch it. Some were setting up some food and one enterprising group had rolled up some beer kegs. The Village Elder, an old man with a great long beard, got up to open the race.

"You have all heard of Vlad Draculer commonly known as Vlad the Implaer. Bram Stoker used him as inspiration for his Dracula novel. He did not do a very good job portraying the count though," The elder paused to take a breath before he went into a rant about the subject, "That is his castle up there and in it is the goal of this race," He points towards the castle and there is a flash of lightning.

"Where did that lightning come from?" asked Mr. Daikoku surprised as he looked up at the clear blue sky.

"Don't ask me it all ways does that," replied the elder, "Anyway in order to get to the castle you must go though the forest along the side of a canyon and though the front gate. The end goal is somewhere in the castle." The elder didn't mention a number of things, such as the bridge of doom. After all it was part of the race for them to deal with unexpected things. "Are both the contestants ready?"

Ranma and Kaori took their places at the starting line and nodded.

"Ready, Set, Go." He said firing off a gun

The two of them took off running. The Elder turned to a group of werewolves and looked at his watch, "It has been two minutes." The werewolves transformed and took off after them.

"Man you guys don't do things by halves do ya," said Makoto.

Mr. Daikoku was less sanguine about this turn of events then Makoto, "What? But…"

The Elder figured that he was stammering about the fact that a werewolf bite caused a person to become a werewolf themselves, "Don't worry. They have all taken the proper precautions, so there will be no trouble."

Mr. Daikoku his mouth to complain about this some more, but no one paid any attention to him.

If someone who could hear thoughts was listening they would find it interesting how different Ranma and Kaori's thoughts were when they realized the werewolves were going to be chasing them though the woods. Kaori's thoughts were something like this, 'they expect me to outrun wolves are they crazy.' Ranma's thoughts, on the other hand, were 'cool I don't have to worry about being mauled this time and I'm not carrying anything heavy that would slow me down either.'

Kaori immediately jumped into the trees to stay away from the werewolves, which she figured would be safe from them as long as they didn't shift into that half wolf, half human form that she had seen in movies. She didn't actually have to worry about that. After all the hybrid form is just a Hollywood invention. The most a real werewolf can do for a partial transformation is one arm, but Kaori didn't know that so she did worry and almost missed a jump because of her worrying. She paid more attention to what she was doing after that.

Ranma, on the other hand, ran along the ground. It was faster, due to lack of undergrowth, and why mess with a winning strategy? You guessed it, one of Genma's crazy training ideas was running away from a pack of wolves while carrying all their stuff. He had to knock out a few werewolves with a kick to the jaw and swing over some of them using a handy tree branch.

The wolves dropped off as the land started to get rockier and the forest ended as per the plans for the race. The course designers had decided that there would be too much chance of someone getting badly hurt or dieing on the narrow mountain paths, hey just because it's a crazy martial arts race doesn't mean that they don't think about safety. Now that Kaori wasn't having to jump from branch to branch she began to catch up to Ranma a little bit. The two of them were soon working their way up the side of one of the Carpathian mountains. Ahead of them was a big canyon that was too wide to jump over. There was a rope bridge spanning the canyon. When Ranma was half way across the bridge, Kaori caught up with him.

"Stop right there," Kaori said as she threw two fortune cookie boomerangs at Ranma in a X shaped formation.

Ranma easily jumped over the attack, "Ha, you'll have to do better then that if ya wanta beat me." Unfortunately neither of the teenagers thought to stop the boomerangs, well until it was too late and they had cut though the ropes supporting the bridge they noticed that. The bridge collapsed and Ranma stuck Excalibur into the canyon wall and grabbed Kaori so that she didn't fall into the chasm that yawned below them. Of course he had accidentally grabbed her breast without noticing, which quite offended Kaori. So she tried to hit him, which is a hard thing to do when the only thing that is stopping you from a long drop is the person you are trying to hit.

Ranma being oblivious to the ire that the positioning of his hand was causing thought she was struggling around because she was scared, "Hold on, I'll get us up," Ranma called down thinking, 'I hope, nah of course I will I'm one of the best after all.'

Kaori reached into her shirt and pulled out her emergency supply of freeze dried ramen noodles, they weren't the best, but they work, Noodle Nose" she sent the noodles up to grab one of the bridge posts and pulled herself up. "Now just stay there dear while I finish this sorry excuse for a race," she called down to Ranma as she ran off.

"Bitch! At least it will be easier to get out of this now." Ranma flipped up pulling out his sword. At the top of the flips arc he stabbed Excalibur into the rock again. From there he was able to easily reach the path at the top of the canyon.

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Kaori hurried up the path when she reached the top of the hill she had a good view of the gate the elder had mentioned. As she got closer she saw that the gate was locked and barred. Kaori looked at the immobile gate and saw that it would be easy enough to open. 'But why was it bolted up like that?' All of the bolts were on the outside of the gate not the inside. It would be easy to unlock the door, just pull out those three bolts. Kaori put her hand on the first one and started to pull it out, but stopped when it occurred to her that maybe there was something on the other side that was really nasty. This whole thing just felt wrong. She let go of the bolt and decided to find a different way in.

What she didn't know was that over the years of Dracula's reign the gates had absorbed so much negative energy that there was still a potent fear spell on them. There were numerous ways to get around this, but Kaori didn't know any of them. You or I would not really expect her to know such stuff, but the villagers did because they didn't understand just how different what a martial artist does is from what a bard does. After all they use the same source of power don't they whether it is called Chi or Awen. This was a big mistake on their part, it is about the same as saying that you should be able to catch the game on a defibrillator, because both medical equipment and TVs use electricity. For one thing a bard is trained to detect, if not use, magic and would be able to detect a fear spell from miles away. A martial artist on the other hand wouldn't even notice that there was a spell although they will feel the effects.

A few moments after Kaori left Ranma came walking up to the gate. Now you might know that in many worlds the Hellsing Organization was formed to keep England safe from the threat of vampires, this is not true of this timeline though. You want to know why? It is because Oberon and Titania drove the vampires out of England for violating the Convent. It was a fierce struggle that went on for many years. In that struggle they had the help of many humans, for nothing can be decided without them. Those humans who helped were given certain abilities to ward against mental and spiritual attacks. This was often called the Elf Queens Blessing or Titania's Blessing, because it was Titania who gave them this protection. Ranma was given this same 'Blessing when he was given Excalibur.

So Ranma suffered no ill effects. He did wonder why one of the bolts was pulled part way out though and decided to will his armor on. The bolts were rusty and a bit hard to pull out, but soon enough Ranma pushed the door open and walked though the gate

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Meanwhile back at the base of the mountain some people had had to much to drink and it was making them argumentative, even more so then usual that is.

"Ya well I notice they didn't ask you to help. Maybe they were afraid to let you to close to a beautiful girl." A werewolf yelled at the vampire who had just made a comment about the fact that he wasn't helping in the race 'and I wonder why.'

"And what might you be implying, you mangy, flea bitten cur?" as you can guess both the vampire and the werewolf were parts of that 'unruly group of youngsters' that the elders were worried about. Tomas moved forward to deal with this and Minako moved up by his side to help if he needed it. Unfortunately the werewolf didn't notice this, because of his battle rage. He had transformed and was leaping at his enemy, but was stopped half way by Minako being in the way. This so surprised him that he clamped his mouth shut on Minako's arm. When he saw her pass out he thought, 'Oh hell, I'm in trouble now.'

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'If I get on the top of one of those tower things, I should see the goal,' thought Ranma and the thought proved to be father to the deed as Ranma was able to get to the top of the round tower with a few strategically placed jumps. From up there he could see all around including down into the courtyard at the center of the castle where the goal could clearly be seen. Ranma prepared to jump.

_Ranma, Minako just got hurt, she was trying to stop a fight and, and_

_What be right there _Ranma now used his birds eye view to find the quickest way back to the village.

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Kaori was halfway around the castle looking for a way in when she saw a red and black blur that seemed to have a pigtail pass right in front of her.

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"Where's Minako? I heard she was hurt, Artemis told me," Ranma asked the first person he saw when he got back to the village still panting from his run backFortunately the person he asked knew what he was talking about, indeed it would be hard for anyone in the village not to know despite how Ranma was babbling, "Ai that a right mess. That idiot couldn't see beyond his own battle rage and now he is going to have to pay a blood price for his actions today," then remembering who he was talking to, "Blood price is the price one pays for the blood one has spilt. Your friend is that way, he points to the right, "First building on the right."

Ranma ran off in that direction before the man had stopped talking. The man didn't mind this or the lack of a thank you, after all some discourtesy was understandable given the circumstances.

As soon as Ranma got to the building he overheard some talking "I don't understand why the magic is acting differently. That is only suppose to happen if there is a conflicting magical field," The voice paused, "And no the fact that she has bee learning magic would not cause this."

'Are they talking about Minako thought Ranma as he moved closer

The next voice he heard was Artemis's familiar one and it sounded worried and nervous, "Since the, um, spell that, um, made the werewolves include part of the Lunar Guards enhancement spell, it must be reacting to the fact that she is the Senshi of Venus."

Before the first voice, it belonged to the village healer by the way, could ask what he meant Ranma came in, "I got here as fast as I coulda. How's Minako?"

The Healer spun around, "How did you get here so fast we only just sent someone up to tell you the race was canceled?"

Since it is Christmas I guess you can call this a Christmas present if you want to. This chapter gave me a lot of trouble when I was writing it and I am still not sure about it so tell me what you think. Thanks to AnimeFreak 341 for letting me bounce ideas off his head and for Prereading. And thank you Spokavriel for catching the DeusEx


	7. interlude

Timeline 4536

Interlude 1

Disclaimer: I do own the ninjas, nothing else though

Ryouga was trying to make his way from Romania back to Japan. He was trying to follow Oberon's advise homing in on a person's aura, but that was hard to do when the person , in this case Haruka, was so far away. So Ryouga was also using his map, now if only he had grabbed the right one. He looked up from the map of Malaysia and saw that the land around him was dotted with numerous pools with bamboo poles sticking up from them. 'Where the hell am I now, eh well I guess this is as good a place as any to take a break.' Thinking this Ryouga put down his pack and tried to fold up his map. I say tried because aside from the fact that no one can ever get a map refolded, there was also a breeze running though the valley. The breeze blew the map out of his hands and blew it this way and that way with Ryouga chasing after it. The breeze dropped the map down at the edge of one of the pools. Unfortunately for Ryouga he found out that the edge of the pool had suffered greatly from erosion when it gave way under him and he splashed down into a very special Jusenkyou pool.

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At that moment at Phoenix Mountain the Gekkaja and the Kiyakan lighted up and proclaimed that the foretold leader had come. The elders were in great disarray when Kiima declared that she was going to take Saffron to see their new lord.

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Meanwhile Ryouga-phoenix was at the Jusenkyou Guide's hut getting his new curse explained to him. "You see Mr. Customer, pour hot water on you then you turn back to normal," The Jusenkyou Guide poured a kettle of water on the annoyed phoenix in front of him. None of the water reached the phoenix so he didn't change, "This no good, all water turn to steam. I get some less hot water," This time it worked and Ryouga was returned to his normal form. Ryouga thanked the Guide and as he left he noticed that he had a much better sense of which direction Haruka was in. He was just able to find her aura easier now.

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It was a wonderfully clear day in Tokyo and many people were intent on enjoying it to the fullest. A beautiful young woman with aquamarine hair turned to her companion. She was slender and elegant and one could tell from the calluses on her fingers that she was a musician of some sort, most likely a violinist. Her companion on the other hand was obviously a martial artist of some note. One who carried a few scars or rather one in particular; All along her left arm it looked like it had been wrapped in a burning rope. In truth it was from a fight with an 'enforcer' of a slave ring. The fight had not gone well, but the members of the slave ring were now in jail and she was still alive. She, yes despite the male cloths Haruka Tenoh was female.

xxxxxxx

"There's our target, the one with blonde hair," said one of the ninjas that was peering over the edge of the roof at the couple below.

"So now we jump out onto the road tell her why our client wants her dead then kill her right," said the other ninja rolling his eyes.

"Yes, our client is an idiot," said the first ninja. They both thougt that it was bad enough that they had to take a job like this, but then the idiot who hired them had to make all those extra demands like 'make sure she knows who is killing her and why, but don't actually mention my name.' Idiocy. Despite this, the two ninjas jumped of the roof and landed in front of Haruka and Michiru, "Haruka Tenoh we have been hired to kill you by someone was displeased that you told the police where slave ring he was part of was located.

"Ah man you mean one of them got away. I will have to talk to police about that mistake." As Haruka said this she did a sweep kick which swiftly turned into a roll when several shuriken were thrown at her.

Now Michiru had not had the martial arts training that Haruka had or anything else like that, in fact the only reason she hadn't been killed yet was that none of the shuriken and other stuff were actually aimed at her. If nothing changed soon though then both of them would soon be dead.

Then three things happened in short order. The first thing that happened was that a projectile that Michiru would not have been able to avoid was stopped by a mirror that appeared in front of her and she somehow knew how to use it to defend herself.

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The second thing that happened was that Ukyo Konji was coming back from signing the lease agreement for the restaurant she was going to open when she saw someone who was most differently using Anything Goes being attacked by ninjas. This was both a good and a bad thing. It was good because she had some questions to ask someone who practiced the same art as her old friends, and it was bad because the ninjas were trying to kill that person. Dead people don't answer questions very well. She unsheathed her giant spatula and jumped into the fray.

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Ryouga Habiki was lost as usual. He was currently trying to read his map and avoiding getting hit by any water, getting hit with water is bad. He had a feeling that he was getting close so he grabbed the nearest person, who happened to be one of the ninjas and asked, "Is there someone named Haruka Tenoh around here somewhere?" This is the third thing that happened.

The ninja, whose name was Ichi by the way, was understandably surprised at being grabbed. Since there was, obviously, a major change in the battle, Ichi did a lightning quick evaluation of their impromptu battlefield; One, this heavy hitting martial artist had grabbed him before he had sensed his chi; Two, Tamiya had retreated; Three, the guy holding him was also holding a…'What!?' He just had to ask, "Why are you carrying a map of Norway in your other hand?"

Huh, what?" Ryouga looked at the map. Yep it was of Norway how did that happen, "Well you see.."

Haruka heard Ryouga's voice from where she was by Michiru. She helped Michiru up and called over to Ryouga, "Hey, Ryouga glad you're here,"

"Yep, What's going on, some martial arts challenge?" Ryouga asked looking around.

Haruka grimaced, "I'm afraid not. Hold on to that guy for a minute, ok. I need to ask him some questions."

'Ok time to do plan B, the one I haven't dared tell anyone about because it is so close to violating clan law' thought Ichi and said, "If I tell you where the Kakushin clan, that's my clan, is located will you let me go?"

"Fine start talking," Haruka was aware that he might be lying, but she didn't know what else to do. She couldn't keep him prisoner and she didn't want to kill him in cold blood, in battle maybe but when he was being held there helpless no.

"It's in the Shinuiku ward near the Tsunumaki Library; there is an alleyway, halfway down it there is a door. Kakushin clan HQ is on the other side of the door," said

Ichi hoping Haruka was good enough and that he was giving the right amount of info. If this worked out things would be so much better.

after Ryouga let the ninja goUkyo asked Haruka Where she learned Anything Goes."

Haruka's responce to this was, "Do you mind if we wait until we get some place safer before we talk?"

"Sure, but I'm not leaving until I've got answers," Ukyo could easily see why Haruka wanted to get somewhere safer. The ninjas seemed to be gone, but as Ukyo well knew, you can never know for sure with them.

Michiru spoke up, "Where will we be going then?"

"Good question," Haruka thought for a moment, "Ryouga, can we head for your place?"

"Sure, I remember being able to see…" replied Ryouga

Before Ryouga could go off on to a confusing description of where his house was Haruka said, "Don't worry I remember where it is."

"Um, if we are going to Ryouga's house then why are you leading instead of him?"

"While that would be a good way to hide from the ninjas, I would prefer to find a way to stop them instead," replied Haruka. "Besides it probably just end us up in more trouble if we did that."

"I'm not that bad," Ryouga said with less venom then you might expect.

"Ryouga I'm the one who had to talk the mountain spirits out of killing the four of us last time remember," Then seeing him start to look depressed, "You do seem to be getting places faster now though."

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The house had all of the normal things that a family would have in their house. There were even notes stuck on the refrigerator with magnets and pet bowls in the kitchen, yet the house felt strangely untenanted. Ryouga looked at one of the notes on the fridge, "Mom went out to get some groceries yesterday, huh. She'll probably be home in a week or so." Shinokuro heard her master and came in to great him. Unfortunately she knocked over her water bowl on to him and activated his Jusenkyou curse. Ryouga-phoenix flew over to the sink while everyone was still stunned. He turned on the hot water and just after changing back he realized he was now naked in front of 3 girls, it was embarrassing, even if one of them was Haruka. His pants being tossed to him, by Haruka, he quickly got them on before explaining about his Jusenkyou curse and digging through his pack for a new shirt, the previous one having burned in the transformation. While he was at it he also grabbed the letter he had for Haruka. "Here's a letter from Makoto," he said as he handed it to Haruka.

Ukyo jumped up, "Makoto, so she and Ranma are still alive! Where are they?"

" Romania , I think, "Ryouga replied, "There are some neat looking pyramids near there. One guy tried to sell me a camel."

Now this really confused Ukyo and Michiru, because neither pyramids nor camels belong anywhere near Romania . Haruka, on the other hand, was used to Ryouga's odd grasp of geography, and anyway she was busy reading her letter. She was most of the way though it already.

Minako has recovered and is getting used to her new powers. There's one odd thing usually a werewolf will change at the full moon, not that they can't change at other times, until they get enough control over their powers to stop from changing then. Minako didn't change at the last one though. The Village Elder says that sometimes happens and that something else must trigger the change and we'll have to find out what that is before Minako gain her full powers or something like that.

Ukyo noticed that Haruka was finished with the letter and asked what Ranma and Makoto were up to.

"They are traveling with this archeologist who is researching the Silver Millennium along with a couple of people they met up with in England ," said Haruka.

"Why are they doing that? That's the last thing I'd expect them to be doing." Ukyo stopped and thought for a moment, "Ok maybe not the last thing but still."

"Why that's easy they get three meals a day and he is traveling in the right direction. It's the how I am not sure about. It has something to do with reincarnation and really short skirts." Replied Haruka

Ryouga, remembering how Makoto looked in the skirt that was just mentioned, got a nosebleed. His faithful dog, Shinokuro, handed him a box of klenex, or should that by pawed or maybe mouthed since she was holding the klenex in her mouth. Anyway this caused Ryouga to miss the next thing Haruka said.

"Fiancée, but ...Genma," This last bit was growled. Ukyo shook off her anger at Genma it was kind of pointless to be angry at a dead man then asked Haruka where she had met Ranma and Makoto.

"I was going to an all boys school to annoy my parents. So I was trying to find a place to change for gym that wouldn't reveal my sex to everyone. Makoto was doing the same thing and… Well after getting into a bit of a fight we became good friends. Ranma I first met he crashed into me while fighting over bread with Ryouga," said Haruka, "So how did you meet them?"

"When I was younger, my dad and I would travel from town to town, selling okonomiyaki. In one town I met Ranma Saotome and Makoto Kino. They were traveling with Ranma's pop, Genma, to learn martial arts. We had a lot of fun playing together. Then the day before they were going to leave my father told me he had engaged me to Ranma with our yatai as my dowry and I would get to go with them. But the next morning Genma ran off with the yatai and left me behind. Ranma and Makoto tried to stop him, but he knocked them both out, threw the two of them on to the cart and took off," replied Ukyo.

Michiru recognized the name Genma Saotome, and not as you might suspect from any past dealing or engagements, but because she had read about him in the newspaper. The reporters had a field day with the news that three Japanese citizens had been found murdered by beings most foul in their own place of residence. They had decided to make Genma out as the heroic Martial Artist instead of the petty thief that he was. "Genma didn't he die trying to defend two people from youma of some kind?"

"Yes, most of the people at his funeral because they were so surprised or they were sorry they misjudged him. I went there because I had spent ten years training so I could have my revenge on him for what he did and then he dies in a way that I not only can't blame him for but in a way you can't help but admire."

"I didn't make it to the funeral, I visited his grave though," Haruka didn't realize that she had said this out loud until she was asked why she missed it. After she got over her surprise she said that she had been in the hospital recovering from some injuries.

xxxxxxxxxx

"Ichi, why did you tell our target where we are?" yelled Sakisen

Ichi squirmed around and generally looked like he wanted to be elsewhere, "Well it is easier if we didn't have to go find our target."

"Liar you are hoping that she'll become our new leader aren't you,"

"Well she does have some good contacts and maybe we could get some better jobs, you know ones that aren't go kill that person."

Now personally Sakisen agreed with Ichi and would very much like to stop leading, which he knew he was no good at, but he couldn't say that to Ichi when he was supposed to be reprimanding him. So instead he said, "Oh you don't like your work is that it?"

"Um, I plead the fifth."

Sakisen couldn't help but groan at the bad joke, "And you watch too much American TV,"

xxxxxxxxxxx

"So why are those ninjas after you, Haruka," asked Ryouga.

Haruka responded "You know the time I showed the cops where that slave ring was located."

"You mean the time you ended up in the hospital with several broken ribs, you left arm in tatters and you had overstrained your chi. Yeah I remember it." Indeed Ryouga remembered very well, finding out that one of his few friends had almost died when he was not there. He resolved to be here this time and not let Haruka face those enemies alone, Damn Oberon for being so cryptic when he told him how to fix his direction curse.

Haruka wished that Ryouga hadn't mentioned the injuries she had gotten in that indent, "Yes that time anyway as far as I can tell one of the Yakuza members got away and hired the ninjas to kill me, probably didn't have much trouble finding that I was the informant."

"So what are we going to do about them?" asked Ryouga

"I don't know," Haruka yawned tired, "It has been a long day."

Maybe it would be best if we all got some rest. I find that you can think better then," suggested Michiru. Everyone decided that this was a great idea. Ryouga asked Shinokuro to guard the door and said he was going to take the couch.

After Ukyo left for the spare bedroom Haruka and Michiru had a chance to talk.

"Well do I know how to show a girl an interesting time or what?" despite how flippant this comment sounded and anyone could see that Haruka was nervous and rather unhappy about how things had turned out.

Michiru just smiled, "Well that is one way to describe it. Do you often have people trying to kill you or was today just special?"

"Honestly, this is the first time trouble has come looking for me instead of me looking for it."

"Really then I don't know if I should stay away when you are looking for trouble or ask to come along."

"How is it that you can be so calm about this whole mess?"

"Oh I have always had certain powers, so finding out that others have odd things about them is a bit of a relief in a way. Granted almost being killed to find this out is a bit much, but I am still alive."

"You sure, because I feel like I am in heaven with you right now." They kiss.

xxxxxxxxx

There was fortunately enough food in the Hibiki household for a good breakfast, so the discussion of what to do about the ninjas resumed over the breakfast table. "You know, it might be a good to gather some information first, sugar," said Ukyo

"Only person I know who might know something is Detective Itsuyu, but if I ask him he'll want to get the police involved," Haruka made a face, "I would prefer to fight my own battles, thank you."

"I could try to use this to scry their hideout," said Michiru holding up the Deep Aqua Mirror.

"You could ask my uncle. He used to be a ninja before he got injured," said Ukyo at the same time.

Haruka thought about it for a moment, "Let's do both. Michiru will you need anything else besides that mirror to scry? Where did you get it anyway?" She couldn't remember seeing it before, yet it looked familiar.

"It appeared during the battle yesterday," Michiru replied, "and no I don't need anything else."

"Good anyway could you scry out the ninja hideout, find out if that guy Ryouga caught was telling the truth. Ryouga you stay here to protect her," unsaid, but most definitely thought was and keep from getting lost, "Ukyo I'll go with you to talk to your uncle. Anyone have any problems with this?"

No one did so Haruka and Ukyo left to see Ozen Kuonji, who was a master ninja. He had retired after sustaining a bad leg injury that left him with a permanent limp.

xxxxxxxxx

The house Ukyo took Haruka to was rather eclectic looking and when the front door was opened they had to avoid the log trap that swung out at them. Then Ukyo went ahead to turn off the machine that was throwing knives in the front hall, "Beats me where he gets the money for this stuff."

"I build them myself of course, it's much more fun," said a middle aged man leaning heavily on his cane, "Hello Ukyo, how's my favorite niece? Did you bring your boyfriend to meet me?"

"What, no Haruka is a girl and she already has someone," said Ukyo flustered then falling back on formality, "May I make known to you Haruka Tenoh of Anything Goes Martial Arts. She is having some trouble with the Kakushin ninja clan and is hoping you might know something about them."

"Oh, sorry," Ozen switched tracks from tease his niece to converse about the ninja clans, "Do you want to know about their laws, strategic situation or… no I guess if you are having problems with them you won't want to know about their reputation."

"The strategic situation I think, we are going to have to fight them," replied Haruka

"Might I ask why you have to?" asked Ozen, "It is better to avoid conflict with a ninja clan."

"Don't have much choice in the matter someone has hired them to kill me."

"Ah, I had heard they had run into some hard times and were forced to take some assassination contracts," seeing the look on Haruka's face he then said, "What did you think that ninjas just kill people, because they don't. In fact most of them feel it is a mark of shame to be forced to take an assignation contract. Anyway you asked about the strategic situation, well Kakushin is a small clan of five people. Kita who is a kunoichi and wields a Tessen; Ichi who is a hacker and crazy inventor as well as being a good fighter who uses a pair of Kama; Tamiya who is a sword expert; Ta who is in charge of the armory and also has a small healing gift so he serves as the clan's healer too; Sakisen is the leader, he wields a chigiriki. Now they are all good with chi, although Ta doesn't fight much, but they don't have any magic aside from Ta's gift so it would be best to get a magic user to help you if you can."

Haruka thinks though this information, "No a frontal assault won't work I can't gather the manpower and the only person I know that might have some magic is untrained." Her voice turns into a whisper, "Besides how could I ask some else to go with me on something like this especially Michiru."

"Well then you could try challenging the leader, Sakisen to single combat. If you win at the very least they will agree to drop their current contract, maybe more if I remember right," said Ozen standing up, "Well that's my only idea, if you survive then come visit me again I have lots of information I can share with you," He saw his guests out hoping that see Haruka again for he needed a heir to his style of ninjitsu and none of his blood were willing. They all wanted to become cooks.

xxxxxxx

Meanwhile back at Ryouga's house, Michiru concentrated on the Deep Aqua Mirror and an image started to appear in it. The image was fuzzy at first but it soon became clearer, then she started to hear sounds. She saw Kita and Tamiya practicing; Kita slices though a pole with her fan. Sakisen was trying to work on some accounts; Michiru could see that he had forgotten to carry the four. Ichi was grumbling about punishment detail while Ta was watching him do an inventory of the armory. Then the vision ended.

xxxxxxx

Everyone gathered back at the Hibiki's kitchen table and told what they had found out. It looks like the best bet would be to challenge the leader of the ninjas to single combat," said Haruka.

"I'll send him a challenge letter then," Ryouga pulled out a pen and paper.

"That is not how you challenge a clan leader to combat, sugar. You have to go to the clan base and declare that you wish to polish your skill against their leader, in this case Sakisen," said Ukyo

Haruka figured out the reason Ryouga was so quick to pull out paper for a challenge letter, "Ryouga I'm the one who is going to be fighting him, not you."

"All right but I am coming with you," he said

"So am I," Michiru said as she laid her hand on her girlfriend's arm.

Ukyo also said she was going, actually what she said was, "Don't try to leave me behind, sugar." Then they left for the Kakushin clan hideout and whatever would happen there.

xxxxxxxxxx

Now if you asked Ryouga you could get a complete technical description of the fight, but from Michiru's point of view most of it was a blur and not necessarily in a metaphorical sense either. Basically Sakisen tried to hit Haruka with a spiked ball on a stick that Ukyo said was called a chigiriki. Haruka would dodge out of the way and punch or kick him if she got the chance. After one particularly spectacular roll Sakisen showed one of the special features of his weapon, namely that the head of the weapon could be detached and by means of a chain swung around. The ball of the chigiriki hit Haruka in the side and she skid against the floor. Before Sakisen could get another blow in though a sword appeared next to Haruka and she grabbed it and sliced clean though the chigiriki's chain, surprising Sakisen and sending the spiky ball part flying into the wall. Haruka completed the swords arc about an inch from Sakisen's neck. "Yield and I won't kill you."

Sakisen went down on one knee, "I will yield and be glad of it, for the Kakushin clan has a new leader today," seeing the look of confusion and alarm that appeared on Haruka's face, "That's you by the way," He took his signet ring off and handed it to Haruka.

Ichi was very glad his plan had worked.

Vocabulary

Chigiriki - This weapon is a 2 foot long straight stick, with a 2-1/2 chain attached to the top with a ball with spikes. This weapon is considered to be the Japanese morning star. The chain could be fitted in side the stick like the Kusari-Gama/Kama, and used as a mace.

Kama - Kama are the basis of the kusari-gama. Kama is just the sickle on it's own. They are usually used in pairs and swung in various arcs, crescents etc. All sorts of slashing motions combined with the forward momentum of the ninja they can cause some devastating damage. The blade of the Kama is roughly around 11-12 inches. The handle is slightly longer. Original sickles had a longer blade and shorter handle.

Tessen - The Tessen was a folding fan with an iron frame and, when folded, was used to club an enemy. A few different variations were invented, including one with a sharp edge on the outside of the framework so that, instead of only being able to club a person, the ninja could cut as well.

Shinuiku ward – One of the wards of Tokyo ; It is between Nerima and Minato wards

Tsunumaki Library – Yes this is a real library in the Shinuiku ward

Thanks go to Spokavriel and AnimeFreak 317


	8. Chapter 7

Timeline 4536

Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I don't own this stuff, well except for Tomas

Doctor Jones was at one of the local taverns in Edirne near the edge of Turkey trying to gather some information. One might wonder how anyone could call buying drinks for all the old men gathering information but hey it was. Knowing the local folklore can give an archaeologist important info.

Case to point: "They say that at the same time King Croesus built that temple to Artemis in someplace called Ephesus he also built a temple to Hera around here that contained the secrets of the planets and eternal life." a rather drunk man told Indy. Now this was even better info then Indy had been hoping for and he asked the man if he knew where it was. "Stories say it was built between the breasts of the capital or something like that." Indy stayed at the tavern for several more hours, but he wasn't able to find out anything else.

xxxxxxx

The next morning Doctor Jones announced that would be heading to Salihli next. Unfortunately he had drunk too much the night before so he didn't notice that Tomas was the only one in the room.

"Why there? I thought we were going though Eshischir." asked Tomas after a moment.

"Got some information last night," Indy looked around and noticed the lack of people, "Where's everyone else?"

"Makoto decided to take advantage of having access to a kitchen by cooking breakfast and as I am sure you know neither Ranma nor Minako are exactly early risers when given the choice, so they are still asleep. Somehow, though, you did manage to get up earlier then someone who has drunk as much as you has any right to."

It took them several days to get to Salihli. When they got there the only room they could find was at a rather shoddy establishment, so they decided to have Artemis stay with their stuff. That was something Artemis had no problems with because he wanted to take a cat nap. As they started out to try and find this temple Indy said under his breath "Between the breasts of the capital."

Ranma was close enough to hear him though"Ya know you could get hurt saying something like that," Ranma said conversationally.

"What? No, I think is a reference to some geological feature not person. So if you see anything tell me, ok?" Doctor Jones was not sure whether Ranma was referring to something he would do to him or something Makoto would do and would rather not have cause to find out. In actuality though Ranma was talking about something that happened to him a few years ago when he had said something very similar himself within earshot of a girl who practiced martial arts fire breathing, ouch.

Ranma looked over across the valley, "Maybe those... Hey there's Ryouga." There was a blur to one side. "Sis can sure move fast, can't she?" he said as they walked towards Ryouga.

xxxxxxxx

Ryouga was marveling at how irrigation can change a piece of dessert into this lush of a landscape when he sensed someone coming at him at high speed. He braced for the attack and... got hugged. "Hi Makoto, what are you doing in Egypt?" he asked while hugging her back.

"We're not in Egypt, silly. We're in Turkey."

"Oh, I did think that last pyramid. looked a bit odd and no mummies tried to attack me."

"Was that possibly a temple that you were in? We're looking for one right now."

Indy had gotten close enough to hear what Makoto said, "You found the temple. Where is it?"

"Over that way." Ryouga said pointing behind himself. Fortunately Ryouga hadn't turned around, so he actually pointed in the right direction for once. Then Ryouga reached into his backpack "Haruka's been up to some pretty big stuff. You better read about it. Here's her letter.

... So now I have command of five ninjas and all the responsibilities that go with it. Responsibilities like finding ways to earn enough money for all of us to live off of. First thing I did was I hired Nabiki to do the accounting. She may be a bit mercenary but she has a code she follows and I explained what happens to people who double-cross ninjas. She seems to be fitting in with everyone well, her and Ichi keep having long iincomprehensible conversations about hacking or something.

Then we thought about how to earn some money for her to manage. She suggested talking to her father and I also decided to ask Detective Itsuyu to see what they had to say. Tendo-sensei said I could take over the monster hunting he had been doing to pay the bills. Now that the Dojo is full again he doesn't need the money and he is to busy teaching to do it. That brings in some money, but it is a bit irregular and since the work is usually out of town it means I have to miss school. I can't do that to much if I want to graduate. Detective Itsuyu said that he would keep his ears open. He's called me out to do several crime scenes involving magic to help with the investigation.

My training is going well. Ozen Konji is teaching me ninja stuff and I don't just mean fighting techniques. I have been helping Tendo-sensei some with the classes he is teaching. I am thinking I might take a training trip out to Mt Kurama to see if I can find that Tengu we ran into last time we where there. He expressed some interest in training me in the sword last time and I am hoping the offer is still open.

"She's now the leader of a ninja clan and has gotten a girlfriend. Man you weren't kidding about her being busy were you." said Makoto

They traced Ryouga's back trail or rather tried to. It petered out after a few minutes. "How come your tracks just seem to disappear?" asked Indy glaring at Ryouga.

"Um, I think my family got cursed by a Nurikabe or something. That's what the story my dad told me said."

They went up a small hill between two larger hills and there was the temple. One could see its collumed form clearly. the only odd thing was that there was no way that the hill been blocking their view of the temple, it was not big enough.

Tomas was the first one to figure out why that was, "Good cloaking spell wouldn't you say. It's old, though, so it is getting rather weak. That's why we were able to get through. Its a good thing that it wasn't made with Order/Chaos magic. That's only system of set spells that don't lose strength over time. They just have a tendency to change or warp with age, which can be very bad."

"We don't need a complete dissertation on magic, Tomas" said Doctor Jones looking at the temple.

"Hey I would like to hear about Order/Chaos magic." this statement of Minako's was at least in part because she loved the sound of Tomas's voice. Can't blame her there, he did have a bard's trained voice, after all.

"You're suppose to stop me when I start to rant, not tell me to continue. Be that as it may, what my lady wants she will have." Tomas managed to somehow pull off a full formal bow with outbreaking stride as they walked up to the temple, "Its and old magic system based on the principals of the elemental opposites of Order and Chaos. It is thought to be the precursor to the modern elemental system of magic, but no one uses it anymore because of the danger. Order and Chaos can only be found together, yet they have some very violent or weird effects when they come in contact with each other."

xxxxxxx

As they walked into the first main room, which Doctor Jones and Tomas knew was called the cella, they saw a giant statue on the middle of the room. "Haven't seen that before. Who's it suppose to be?" asked Ryouga.

"How could you... never mind. It's of the Goddess Hera. She was the goddess of marriage and married to Zeus, the king of the gods." said Indy. Ryouga should be glad that this was a temple to Hera not Aphrodite or he would have gotten such a nosebleed. "Looks like this is the right place. What we are looking for should be further back in the temple."

Behind the statue was a hallway with a number of rooms. The first few had presumably been living quarters. Nothing at all that was interesting to anyone. As they went further into the temple someone, probably Ranma, made the comment of it not being very interesting so far. One should never make comments like that, they always cause Murphy's law to come into play. In this case what happened was that a trap was tripped by someone stepping on a switch on the floor without noticing it. The result was that the floor disappeared from under Tomas and Ranma. They both reacted to this differently. Tomas brought out his wings, hey he is half dragon, and flew out. His shirt got some holes torn in the back of it though. Ranma, on the other hand, bounced off the bottom and sides of the pit until he reached the top, somehow picking up one of the snakes that was at the bottom of the pit. Indy mumbled something about not liking snakes.

Ranma over heard this and asked, "Man, did someone wrap you in rats and throw you in a pit snakes when you were little or something?"

Indy gave Ranma a very odd look and decided just to answer the question rather then wonder where the hell it came from, "No, I did fall into a pit of snakes once though."

"Good then I don't gotta go beat anyone up," Ranma was also glad he wouldn't have to find out what the Snake – Fist was like.

Beyond the snake pit there were two doors. Doctor Jones said that should split up to check them and to watch for more traps.

xxxxxxxxx

The room that Makoto, Ranma and Tomas went in was full of, well, gold and jewels mainly. Most of it was in the form of jewelry, but some was on the weapons and there was what looked like a life size version of the big statue in the front room. They all thought that it was lifelike enough to almost be breathing although Tomas would be the only one to describe it that way. "Man look at all this!" exclaimed Ranma. Makoto was of like mind for this was more wealth they had ever seen before.

Tomas on the other hand was not impressed. Living Underhill he had seen many displays of wealth and knew how fake they were. "First thing we need to do is find out which of those have magic. Both of you have learned how to do that right?" Both Ranma and Makoto answered in the affirmative and they started looking over the things. Unfortunately none of them bothered to look closer at the 'statue' or they would have noticed that it or rather she was actually breathing.

xxxxxx

The room that Indy, Minako and Ryouga went into was or rather had been a study or library, for it had many scrolls in it. Most of them had become unreadable with time, but Doctor Jones started to carefully look over the ones that were still legible. When he asked Minako to help him with one that was partly in the language. of the Silver Millennium, Ryouga looked over their shoulders and recognized two of the illustrations. "I've seen those, the mirror and sword, before." It would be hard to forget a sword that had appeared in such a dramatic manner and that mirror he must of spent an hour looking at while Haruka's girlfriend scryed the ninja stronghold. Indy opened his mouth to ask where Ryouga had seen them, but before he could there was a yell from the other room. So the question went unasked as they rushed to see what happened.

xxxxxx

A spear jumped up off its rest and – Wham – hit Makoto in the back of the head. "Ow stupid spear." When Makoto toughed the spear it started to glow. "Hey guys, I..." before Makoto could finish she got glomped from behind.

"Oh my dear husband, it is so good to see you again." gushed the statue who was obviously not a statue, but instead was the goddess Hera herself.

"No I am not your husband," yelled Makoto, "look ya see I'm a girl."

Hera looked over Makoto, "You're right you are definitely female, but yet your magical aura is the same. Oh I am going to get Hermes for this." She said thinking that he must have changed her husband to a girl as a practical joke. She turned to go find the little brat.

By this time Tomas had an idea of who this person was, "This is not Hermes' fault, your grace. Could you please tell us if Zeus had a connection to Jupiter?"

Yes, of course those men with the funny plumed helmets called him Jupiter. The founder of the city was one of Ares get, you know, even if they did call him Mars.

"That is not exactly what..." As Tomas tried to ask about a magical connection between the god Jupiter and the planet Jupiter, Ryouga and the others came in.

There are two things that a student of mythology can tell you about Hera, One is that she is the goddess of marriage. The other is that she is jealous, in fact most of the myths she is in involve her getting back at human woman for sleeping with her husband, Zeus. This being said it is not surprising that she tried to attack Ryouga, being that she could see that it was likely that Makoto would be marrying him at some point and she thought Makoto was her husband. It was also not surprising that Ryouga threw his attacker though the wall. After all he knew by now that women could be just as good of fighters as guys. What was surprising was that the temple started to collapse after Hera was thrown though the wall. As you might guess our intrepid heroes left in a big hurry and of course Ryouga got separated from the others and lost.

xxxxx

"I think what we just saw was an example of the law of contamination, specifically the power of words to change the nature of the thing."

"What the hell are ya talking about, Tomas?"

"I mean that when the Romans decided to rename the Greek Pantheon after the planets, then that gave those gods access to the power of those planets."

Now a couple of months ago Ranma's response to this statement would have been 'Ya right, what's a pantheon anyway?' but he had learned a few things since then. For example he knew that a pantheon was all the gods of a mythology. He also knew that Tomas usually had some idea of what he was talking about, so he just asked., "What ya mean by that? That words make things powerful by themselves?"

Tomas nodded, "That is a bit of an oversimplification, but it is in part true. Understanding is also needed. Just because someone has power doesn't mean they know how to use it, which can be dangerous."

"You're crazy."

"So says the person who thinks jumping out of trees is a good way to learn to fall."

xxxxx

The manuscript that Indy had found before Hera and Ryouga kinda destroyed the temple was not actually in the language of the Silver Millennium, but in Ionic, one of the Ancient Greek languages. It was saturated with enough words from the Silver Millennium to make it next to impossible to read for most people. Doctor Jones was not most people, so it was merely very difficult for him to read. 'If the three talismans are brought together then the Holy Grail will appear..." Indy looked at the illustration of the tailisman, the drawings that Ryouga had said he recognized. Then he called out, "Is there anyway to find Ryouga?"

"Why ya want ta find him?" asked Ranma as Makoto mumbled something about how she wished she knew a way to find Ryouga when he disappeared.

"Damn it he said he recognized these," Indy said pointing at the drawings. "If you have all of them then you can get the Grail and he knows where two of them are, but I can't ask him because he disappeared."

Sword and mirror huh thought Makoto, "I think I know what he was talking about. Haruka mentioned a sword and a mirror in her last letter. Ryouga's seen those and they are probably what he was talking about."

"Your friend lives in Japan doesn't she? Are you sure you aren't just saying that so you guys can go home?" Indy was smiling now. "We will have to stop in Iran first. I need to check some things with my contact there."

xxxxxxxx

Captain Kiima of the Phoenix people life had changed a lot in the past months. The fact that someone named Ryouga Hibiki had fallen into the Spring of Drowned Phoenix meant two things personally to her. One was she had a reason to leave th Mountain with Saffron, namely they must greet their new leader, which she took. The second was that the lock that prevented Saffron from going though puberty was gone. The seal had been put in place to keep Saffron from losing control of his powers due to the strain. It was now no longer needed, for part of that power now lied with Ryouga, which was a good thing really despite the fact that it was really annoying to have to deal with Saffron right now. Kiima so wanted to find this Ryouga, she just didn't know how to deal with this angsty teenage male and she didn't think she could stand this much longer.

Saffron stuck his head in the door. He now looked to be around fourteen. "I found someone whose seen the guy we're looking for."

Ok maybe it wasn't all bad, "thank you and you are suppose to call him Your Imperial Majesty, not that guy."

"You know calling people that kind of stuff gives them a swollen head." Saffron had always enjoyed playing jokes on his guardians. It had taken him awhile to realize that now that he didn't have to worry about taking the throne and having people calling him silly things he was actually happier. He was worried about what would happen when they met up with this Ryouga though.

AN: Now I am not a superstitious person, but there have been thirteen reviews (and thank you to everyone who gave them) for over a chapter and during this time I have been swamped with studying for my Anatomy class. Like I said I am not superstitious, but could someone please give a review so I I can just blame my lack of writing time on my class instead of anything else.

Thanks to claymade of fukufics


	9. The End

AN: I Probably should have done this awhile ago , but I didn't think of it at the time. I am doing it now though. After writing this chapter I decided that this story really needed to be rewritten for plot reasons (You will see what I mean if you read this chapter). I am grateful to anyone that read this story and I hope you will enjoy the rewrite 'Curses Aren't the Only Change.' It can be found by going to my profile page.

Timeline 4536

Chapter 8

Disclaimer: I don't own this stuff, well except for Tomas

Doctor Jones walked up to a house in Iran that he knew quite well. He had been there many times visiting his friend, Bahir, who had always been a good source of information and surplices when Indy had needed them discreetly. Unfortunately he had died of old age last year, but hopefully his son Acned would be inclined to be helpful in the same way. It was hard to say sometimes.

Acmed saw Indy standing there and invited him in once they were inside he said, "It is good to see you, my friend, but I was hoping to you were not anywhere near here."

Indy's muscles went taunt at this, "Why?"

"For about the reason you are thinking of," He said noticing Indy's reaction, "Because some 'old friends' of yours from your homeland are in town looking for you."

"Ah hell, could you get together some supplies, transportation and proper papers for traveling in China for me."

Acmed didn't take offense at Indy's abruptness since it was warranted. "Yes that shouldn't be a problem for me." He looked in one of his ledgers. "So you are going to investigate those rumors I have head word of. Just be careful you don't get the Chinaesse government mad at you too."

Which rumors are you referring to?" Indy hadn't heard of any rumors until now. It was just that going though China would be the best way for them to get to Japan, since he couldn't risk getting on a plane. He didn't say this of course.

"The ones about the chinasse government having the services of warriors with special powers, who are said to be the desendents of an empire that spanned the solar system. This group surposally lives in an autonomous region inside China."

"That has got to be one of the crazier rumors I have heard. China doesn't have and autonomous region after all." Indy said and Acmed shrugged agreeing that it was pretty crazy. Neither of them knew how close to the truth this rumor was. "So how long will it take to get the surplices ready?" asked Indy.

"Only a few hours. We should be done by this evening."

Indy got up, "Good, bring them to the East Gate around eight. I have to go collect the rest of my group."

After they left Artemis, who had kept his mouth shut while inside so to not scare the man Indy had been talking to asked, "So who are those old friends of yours that you don't want to meet up with?"

"CIA, they seem to find the fact that I don't grow old very interesting."

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"Hell I hate being in charge of transportation during a snatch. It's so boring." the CIA agent turned to his companion, who was wolfing down a hamburger, but all he got was an inconcohairent mumble in reply. "Where did you find that anyway?"

The second agent took a chug of his drink "McDonalds are everywhere. actually I'm glad that we didn't get selected to make the snatch, and its not because I'm lazy either. If you had bothered to look over the information, then you would see those two girls we're surrposed to snatch wer fighting demons when they were in England."

Artemis and Indy overheard this and knew that they were talking about Makoto and Minako. "You take the one on the right, I'll take the one on the left" Artemis wispered as he changed into human form.

Indy got his gun out, "Right, wonder what is going on in there?" he said nodding at the building.

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"Are you sure this is a good idea?" asked Minako, " Doctor Jones said not to get into trouble."

"Don't worry about it, I just wanta see what the fighters here are like." said Makoto, "And it will do you some good to see some other fighting styles."

"But I wanted to go shopping." Minako knew that she was whining, but she didn't want to be anywhere near the toughs she saw around here. Nope, she would like to spend her hard earned cash on something beautiful.

"Shopping why? Doctor Jones is taking care of getting supplies." despite what some might think Makoto was being perfectly serious.

Before Minako could respond some of the aforementioned toughs came up, "Hey you little girls take a wrong turn? We'll be glad to set you right in exchange for some fun." The presumed leader of the toughs smiled lecherously for about two seconds before he was slammed into the wall courtesy of Makoto's kick.

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Hassan was keeping an eye on the crowd making sure no one did anything stupid that would bring the cops down on them and looking for a good fighter. The fights had been getting stale lately and people weren't betting as much. When he saw some young punks causing trouble for some girls he went to go break it up, bad for business after all having girls hurt on the permasis , but it turned out that he might have to defend the idiot punks instead. Those two girls knew their way around a fight, although one of them was vastly more experienced. And really fast too he saw as the lead punk went flying.

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"Maybe ya right and we ended up where the weak wanta be hang out, instead of where the good fighters are." Makoto cracked her kuncles, "Now I believe you said something about payment."

A man moved between Makoto and the toughs. "No fighting unless you're in the ring." The toughs take one look at him and leave in a hurry. Before Makoto can say anything the man said "You can get registered for fights in there," he points to a building to the right, "and you better not lose because I'm betting on you."

Don't worry, I'm one of the best." Replied Makoto.

"Ha so what is the name of the person who is going to win me a lot of money."

"Makoto Kino of Anything Goes Martial Arts."

"Well, Makoto when you get inside tell the old man that Hassan said you were good."

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"Alright got a new challenger. A girl name of Makoto Kino, is taking on the reigning champion, Bruce the Bruiser. The odds are 3 to 1 in favor of the Bruiser." There was a great deal of call for bets and comments of the odds, many thought the odds were awfully good for a newcomer and a girl at that.

John Smith didn't care about the odds. He did care about one of the fighters though, since the girl, Makoto was traveling with Doctor Jones. He might be able to get leverage over the good doctor of they had some of his companions in their possession. Since Makoto was a bit of a fighter they had decided to snatch her and her friend after the fight rather then before. It would be easy, after all they were only Japs and girls to boot. John Smith told this to his assistant in somewhat vaguer terms, of course, wouldn't want anyone to know what the plan was.

His assistant, on the other hand, had been thinking for a while that the old man was a hindrance to the mission, for the guy was an incompetent fool who was lost in the past. It wasn't the old man who had figured out where Doctor Jones would be, despite the past association with him, and it wasn't him who had found out who he was traveling with. It had been the old man's idea to kidnap the girls and from the look of the fight, it was a damn fool idea. Whatever else you could say about that girl, Makoto, she could fight. Anyone could see that just just by watching that Bruiser character try and hit her, anyone but this fool of an old man who was in command.

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Man the Sahara dessert sure is crowded this time of year thought Ryouga, then he looked up and saw Makoto just as she won her match. She was very beautiful and he walked over to her, making sure to keep his eyes on her the whole time so he wouldn't get lost again and congratulated her on her win. Since Ryouga was concentrating on Makoto he did not notice the CIA agents coming. Once they attacked though...

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The five CIA agents assigned to do the snatch split up into two groups as planned. It was thought that there would be less fuss and less chance of one of them getting away, if the two targets were not close together at the time. Three agents moved toward Makoto, since she was a bit of a fighter and therefore a larger threat. The remaining two agents went towards Minako. They did not anticipate any problems and were confident that if any appeared they would be able to deal with them quickly and efficiently.

Needless to say that is not what happened. The agents that tried to attack Makoto fell in a few seconds between Makoto's fists and Ryouga's umbrella. They weren't even able to interrupt the flow of Makoto and Ryouga's conversation. As for the two that went after Minako, well she showed how much she had learned from Ranma by throwing the first one though one of the wooden beams that were at the corners of the fighters ring. The other one found out that the bouncers at this place were faster to respond the expected when one of them hit him from behind, excuse me let me correct that, he didn't actually find that out until after he regained consciousness.

Makoto looked over at the broken beam, "Hope they don't try and make us pay for that."

"Don't worry about it." said Hassan, "I do find it odd that you seem to be more worried about that, then the men who attacked you."

"Cause they're wimps, you ain't."

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Minako could almost smell the traces leading to the rest of the people who had tried to kidnap her, but not well enough to follow it though, not in human form. She was wondering if she really wanted to follow that trace, when she overheard that Hassen guy, who was he really, say that the next time the CIA would send tougher people. "If we need to find their trail then I'll, um, go get a wolfhound to sniff it out." She ran around the corner and after a moment a wolf came out from around the wall she had disappeared around.

Seeing this Hassan thought 'Does she think I am an idiot.' He decided not to say anything until after they had tracked down the remaining agents, which they did easily enough. When they did they found out that someone had gotten there first. One guy had been thrown through a wall and the other one was on the ground bleeding from a gunshot wound. Indy was standing over him with a gun pointed at his head. Artemis was in a fighting stance nearby and when he heard someone coming he swiftly turned to see who it was. "Good, it's you Makoto."

"Of course, come on you didn't think they would be able to beat me."Makoto had on one of those triumphant smirks that any one who knows Ranma would reconize.

Seeing this Hassan turned to the, um, wolfhound. "Now that this is being taken care of I would like to hear how you became a werewolf, Miss. Minako."

"How did you know?" In most cases changing back to human form when someone calls you a werewolf is not the smartest thing to do, but in this case it was.

Hassan lifted an eyebrow. "You mean that you weren't born one. That was simple..."

"No I mean how did you know I was the wolf?"

"I may be many things, but a idiot is not one of them." said Hassan

"Gotta say that was one of the stupidest cover ups I've seen, Minako" Makoto said turning away from Artemis.

"But..." Minako was going to reply that it had always worked before, when she remembered that if it had worked then her parents and Soatome san would still be alive. "You're right sorry. I became a werewolf a few months ago wen we were traveling though Romania."

"Only a couple of months! How did you gain control of the transformation so quickly." Hassan had several contacts with the supernatural, so he knew that it useally took six months to a year for someone to gain as much control as Minako showed just now."

"Um, actually"

Doctor Jones interrupted, "We have to go find Ranma before anyone else does."

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"This is the last place I would have expected to see you Tomas. What are you doing here?"

Tomas turned around to see Ceran, who visited the court of Avalon about once a year in the course of his work. Tomas easily slipped into the formal wording used in court. "I am on my Journeyman travels. Might I make known to you Sir Ranma Soatome who has kindly consented to be one of my companions on my travels?"

Ranma just had to speak up at this point, "What's with the sir in front of my name?"

"All knights have sir before their names the same way you would add sensei to the end of a teachers name." said Tomas.

"But I'm not really a knight." exclaimed Ranma

To this Tomas replied, "Yes you are, you became one when Titania gave you your arms and armer. Anyway," he gestures to Ceran, "This is Ceran Vesck, he travels around the world dealing in magical artifacts."

Cean smiled at the two's interaction, it was good to see Tomas relaxing so much. "Actually I have growth tired of traveling so much, so I live around here now. I have a shop right over there." He pointed down the street. "You are welcome to come visit if you want."

Looking at a bunch of old artifacts sounded to much like work for Ranma, so he said he would catch up with Tomas later

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"Ah hello, now I know that my husband is around here somewhere. Where is he?" Ranma turned around hoping that the voice he heard was not who he thought it was. Unfortunately, it was Hera. She was standing there pointing that spear that had whacked Makoto in his general direction. Her grip was rather badly off and she would probably drop it if she tried to use it. "Look lady, ya just confused because of ta law of contamination. Makoto ain't your husband. She's the reincarnation of..." Ranma was going to finish with "the princess of Jupiter" when he was interrupted.

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After getting away from being bitten by any werewolves Koari realized that they had left Ranma behind. There had been any chance of her actually being bit, but she had thought that was because she suffering from the after effects of the fear spell she came in contact with not because she is an idiot though she didn't know that. Anyway her and her father hired a private investigate to find him again, thus they were able find out that Ranma was traveling though Iran with that group of his. They also had found out that the CIA was after Dr Henry Jones Jr. who was commonly called Indiana Jones. It was imperative that hey separate Ranma from the others before he got into trouble with them. It would be most inconvenient to have Koari's fiancé involved in an international incident.

So Koari was here following up on a tip that someone had seen an Asian boy with a pigtail along the street. Just as she was about to give up and go beat up the man who sent her on a wild goose chase, she heard "ain't your husband" from around the corner. It was most definatly her fiancé's voice saying it which means... well she couldn't let that happen. Koari ran around the corner shouting that Ranma was her fiance and she was the one who got to see if he lived up to his name in bed.

Hera resisted the urge to take notes on the graphic discribsion of how Koari was going to find this out. "I care not for your interruption. You will not be getting married anytime soon."

Now Hera knows since she was the goddess of marriage after all, but Koari took it to mean that this arrogant hussy was competition for her Ranma and probably the reason that her fiancé hadn't come to find her. "You're carrying his child aren't you, you brazen hussy."

Ranma hearing this proved that somethings are instinctive, not learned, by running away while those two were fighting. Of course both Hera and Koari started to chase after him without stopping their own fight, don't ask me how they managed that.

Ranma soon ran into the magic item dealer that Tomas had been talking to earlier. The man had one of his carpets with him and Ranma asked "This a magic carpet?" at the mans nod he grabbed it and unrolled it "I need ta barrow it thanks" Ranma took off on the carpet. About two seconds later, Hera and Koari came running around the corner.

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Ceran went back into his store. "I'm afraid your friend in some trouble. He is being chased by two woman," he said to Tomas, "And he just go on that defective magic carpet that I was getting rid of.

Tomas shoke his head "I don't want to know how that happened. Ranma seems to have the most usual luck I have ever seen."

"We'll you better go make sure he doesn't break his foolish head because of that carpet." As soon as Tomas ran out the door he saw the carpet gararating wildly with Ranma hanging on to it grimly. There was nothing for it down here, so Tomas unfurled his wings and flew up to try and catch the carpet and get Ranma off it.

When Tomas grabbed hold of the carpet it gave a large jerk to the right, pulling him on to it and incidentally ramming though a window. There were a lot of scantly clad girls in the room and one half-dressed man in the middle of them. The carpet barreled right into the man and scoped him and and one of his harem girls up, then it went out the window on the other side of the room before anyone had a chance to react.

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It was much easier then anyone had thought it would be. While the others were wondering how the hell this had happened or how they were going to get them down, Ryouga was trying to do this trick he had figured out how to do to heat water. He wasn't in his cursed form but he just needed a spark.

He got more then a spark and the carpet disappeared in a poof of smoke. Fortunately the fire disappeared fast enough that no one was burned. Unfortunately the blowback from the spell threw Ryouga into a nearby fountion, right in front of his girlfriend. Once he had changed back he had to explain about his Jusenkyo curse.

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By some weird chance that seems to happen around Ranma all the time Koari and Hera were right below. The harem girl landed on Hera and the man, well he fell on Koari and they both ended up crashing into a dis play case of love potions and falling in love with each other It really is to bad that Koari's father disapproved of them and it took two years before they were married, but oh well.


End file.
